Montefiore, Langton, brother of Leslie Montefiore (q.v.); b. April 6, 1904; adm. Sept. 26 1918 (A); left Easter 1922; admitted a member of the London Stock Exchange 1927; 2nd Lieut. R.A.S.C. March 30, 1940; Capt.; m. June 2, 1927, Millicent, daughter of S. Lazarus, of St. Marylebone; killed on active service in Greece 27 April 1941.
Langton Montefiore was born at Chartridge, Buckinghamshire on the 6th of April 1904 the second son of Harry John Montefiore, a stockbroker and member of the London Stock Exchange, and Harriet (nee Montefiore) Montefiore of Chartridge Grange, near Chesham, later of “Fingest”, near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.
He was educated at Westminster School where he was up Ashburnham from the 26th of September 1918 and Easter 1922. He was a member of the Debating Society in 1921. He was a member of the Officer Training Corps and was promoted to Corporal in September 1921. On leaving school he went to work as a stockbroker and was admitted as a Member of the London Stock Exchange in 1927. He was married at Marylebone on the 2nd of June 1927 to Millicent (nee Lazarus) and they lived at 80, Eaton Place in London and at “Valley Holme”, Horsted Keynes in Sussex. They had a son, born on the 6th of May 1928. Following the outbreak of war he was appointed as a Deputy Area Officer for Air Raid Precautions. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps on the 30th of March 1940.
At 7pm on the 24th of April 1941, a convoy of trucks of the 308th Reserve Motor Transport Company, Royal Army Service Corps left Argos, Greece to head for Kalamata where they were to be evacuated to Egypt following the collapse of the Allied resistance to the German invasion of Greece. Driver T/199458 F.G. Lee reported that Major James Garrard Black, 2nd Lieutenant J.M. Carroll Lieutenant Mansfield, Langton Montefiore and about 100 men were among those who remained at Argos from where they made their way to the beaches in Nauplia Bay to await evacuation to Crete. They boarded the 11, 636 ton passenger liner SS Slamat, under the command of Master Tjalling Luidinga, on the night of the 26th/27th of April and set sail at 4.15am on the 27th of April. SS Slamat sailed south as part of a convoy and was in the Argolic Gulf when the convoy was attacked firstly by Messerschmitt Bf109 fighters and then by Junkers 87, Junkers 88 and Dornier 17 bombers at 7.15am. During the attack SS Slamat was struck between the bridge and the forward funnel by a 550lb bomb and was set on fire. As she listed to starboard, she was hit by a second bomb and the order was given to abandon the ship. With many of life boats and life rafts having been destroyed in the bombing, most of the survivors swam clear of the sinking ship with two overcrowded life boats capsizing. Some of the survivors were machine gunned in the water by enemy fighters. The destroyer HMS Diamond began taking survivors on board but was forced to stop and speed away when she too came under attack from enemy aircraft. HMS Diamond returned at 8.15am to rescue more survivors and at 9.16am the destroyer HMS Wryneck was ordered to join her in the rescue of the men in the water. At 9.25am HMS Diamond reported that she had picked up most of the survivors and was heading for Souda Bay but, when HMS Wryneck joined HMS Diamond at 11am both of the destroyers returned to SS Slamat where they found two more lifeboats and rescued their occupants. With SS Slamat on fire from stem to stern, she was scuttled by HMS Diamond with a single torpedo before the destroyer left the area with around 600 survivors on board. It is believed that Langton Montefiore was among those who were rescued from the water by the two destroyers.
At 1.15pm, a formation of Junkers 87 “Stuka” dive bombers attacked the two destroyers from out of the sun,with two bombs landing on HMS Diamond destroying her lifeboats and she sank eight minutes later. HMS Wryneck was hit by three bombs and sank ten to fifteen minutes later.
About 1,000 men were lost in the bombing of the three ships with only eight from the five hundred evacuees on board SS Slamat surviving the sinkings.
He is commemorated on the Athens Memorial Face 8.
