Who was Ewen Montagu? All about naval intelligence officer ahead of Colin Firth's Operation Mincemeat on Netflix

Directed by John Madden, Netflix's Operation Mincemeat recounts the fascinating incident that involved a masterful deception plan by two British intelligence officers, Ewen Montague and Charles Cholmondeley, for an enormous undercover mission during the Second World War that saved Sicily.

Adapted for the screen by Michelle Ashford, the Netflix original is based on Ben MacIntyre's novel British Operation Mincemeat. Starring Colin Forth as Montagu and Matthew Macfadyen as Cholmondeley, the movie will be released worldwide exclusively on the platform on May 11, 2022.

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All about Ewen Montague's life and his masterful plan of deceit

Ewen Edward Samuel Montagu was an English solicitor born March 19, 1901, to the English gentry and educated at Cambridge and Harvard. He enlisted in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve after getting his college degree.

He soon climbed up the ranks and worked in Naval Intelligence at the Admiralty, where he was the mastermind behind an odd conspiracy plan.

Ewen was a natural for counterintelligence work, imaginative and talented in strategy and psychological brinkmanship from his years as a criminal attorney. Operation Mincemeat, which he designed with Charles Cholmondeley in 1943, was based on an idea proposed by another creative spy named Ian Fleming.

The plan involved Operation Husky, which would persuade the Germans that a widely anticipated Allied invasion of southern Europe would begin with an attack on Sardinia and Greece rather than Sicily, the most obvious target.

The British embassy dropped a body at sea with top-secret battle plans, pulling off the deception. The body was dressed in a British airman's uniform and carried various papers identifying it as Major William Martin.

To make the character a real person, Ewen and his peers created a virtual life for him that included having Jean Leslie as his MI5 secretary and having photographs of his girlfriend Pam in a bathing robe.

Martin's body was so strategically positioned that it would wash ashore on the shores of Spain, a neutral nation, in April 1943, when the British embassy in Madrid attempted to rescue the documents before German operatives arrived. Those efforts, of course, were unsuccessful as the Germans didn't take the bait initially.

The intelligence obtained from the papers reached Adolf Hitler's desk, who was eventually convinced that the Allies planned to attack the Italian island of Sardinia, despite his initial skepticism. To the surprise of the Germans, the Allies invaded Sicily on July 9.

Recalling the incident, Ewen later wrote in his book dedicated to the mission:

“Joy of joys to anyone, and particularly a Jew, the satisfaction of knowing that they had directly and specifically fooled that monster.”

He was awarded a Military Member of the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to the crucial Allied war effort. Montagu became a Navy Judge Advocate after the Second World War ended and was a civilian judge in Hampshire and Middlesex.

In 1953, he published The Man Who Never Was, a popular account of Operation Mincemeat that saved the lives of countless innocent soldiers. Montagu appeared in a brief cameo appearance opposite Clifton Webb and Gloria Grahame in the 1956 film adaptation.

Ewen Montagu was a loyal, good-natured man whose candid remarks, particularly as a judge, occasionally hurt people, but he was quick to apologize. He passed away on July 19, 1985.

Don't forget to catch Operation Mincemeat exclusively on Netflix on May 11, 2022.