Ewen Montagu

Ewen Edward Samuel Montagu (29 March 1901 – 19 July 1985) was a British judge, Naval intelligence officer, and author. He is best known for his leading role in Operation Mincemeat, a critical military deception operation that misdirected German forces' attention away from the Allied invasion of Sicily ("Operation Husky"). Montagu was president of the United Synagogue from 1954 to 1962, and President of the Anglo-Jewish Association from December 1949 on. Life and career Montagu was born in 1901, the second son of Gladys, Baroness Swaythling (née Goldsmid) and Louis Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling. His family was Jewish. He was educated at Westminster School before becoming a machine gun instructor during the First World War at a United States Naval Air Station. After the war he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and at Harvard University. He was admitted to the Middle Temple on 22 November 1920 and was called to the Bar on 14 May 1924. One of his more celebrated cases as a junior barrister was the defence of Alma Rattenbury in 1935 against a charge of murdering her 30-years-older husband, the architect Francis Rattenbury, who was savagely beaten with a mallet at the Villa Madeira in Bournemouth.