British Officer Noted for Hoax on Nazis Dies

Ewen Montagu, who commanded the wartime British counter-espionage unit responsible for the “man who never was” hoax to deceive the Nazis about Allied landings in the Mediterranean, died Friday at his home here, his family reported. He was 84.

In the hoax code-named Mincemeat, the body of a man was floated ashore in Spain in April, 1943, outfitted with clothes and papers designed to fool German spies into thinking it was a military courier on a secret mission.

Faked Documents

The body carried faked documents indicating that Sardinia and Greece were to be the targets for the next main Allied effort in the Mediterranean, providing important cover for the real invasion in Sicily.

It was revealed after the war that the faked documents reached Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, head of German counter-intelligence, and were accepted as genuine.

Montagu, the second son of the second Lord Swaythling, a Jewish aristocrat, joined British naval intelligence when the war broke out in 1939.

Top Secret

Mincemeat remained top secret until 1953, eight years after the war, when Montagu wrote about it in the book “The Man Who Never Was,” which sold more than 2 million copies. A movie of the same name was based on the book.

Montagu was honored in 1944, a year before the war ended, by being made an officer of the Order of the British Empire, and in 1950 he was made a commander of the same order.

A lawyer, he served as a judge after the war. He is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.