Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
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Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British admiral and statesman and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was the last Viceroy and first Governor-General of independent India, and First Sea Lord, as was his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg.
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Ancestry
Mountbatten was born in Windsor Castle, in England, as His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Battenberg, although his German styles and titles were dropped in 1917. He was the second son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and a great-grandson of Queen Victoria.
His father was First Sea Lord at the outbreak of the First World War, but extreme anti-German feelings obliged him to resign. In 1917, when the Royal Family stopped using their Germanic names and titles, he became Louis Mountbatten, and was created Marquess of Milford Haven. His second son acquired the courtesy style Lord Louis Mountbatten and was known as Lord Louis informally until his death.
Career
Mountbatten served in the navy during the First World War, and in the Second World War he commanded the 5th destroyer flotilla. His ship, the destroyer HMS Kelly, was famous for many daring exploits. In early May 1940, Mountbatten led a British convoy in through the fog to evacuate the Allied forces participating in the Namsos Expedition (see Namsos in April 1940). His ship was sunk during the Crete Campaign. In 1940 he invented the Mountbatten Pink naval camouflage pigment.
Mountbatten was a favourite of Winston Churchill and in 1941 he replaced Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations. He personally pushed through the disastrous Dieppe Raid (19 August 1942) which led to the deaths of thousands of Canadian troops; a defeat Mountbatten tried to blame squarely on their commanding officer but which was largely the result of his botched planning. Field Marshal Montgomery felt the campaign misconceived from the start.
In late 1942, Mountbatten proposed Project Habbakuk to Churchill; the ice supercarrier project was never completed. In October 1943, Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Theatre, a post he held until South East Asia Command (SEAC) was disbanded in 1946. During his time as Supreme Allied Commander of the South-East Asia Theatre his command oversaw the recapture of Burma from the Japanese by General William Slim. His diplomatic handling of General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, his deputy - and also the officer commanding the American China Burma India Theater - and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Chinese Nationalist forces, was as gifted as that of General Eisenhower with General Montgomery and Winston Churchill.
His experience in the region led to his being appointed Viceroy of India after the war. In his position as Viceroy, Mountbatten oversaw the granting of independence to both India and Pakistan. He was familiarly known to British people as "Lord Louis", and was created Earl Mountbatten of Burma in recognition of his service in the Far East.
After India, he served in the Mediterranean Fleet and as a staff officer in the Admiralty.
He took great personal pride and pleasure in serving as First Sea Lord and later as Chief of the Defence Staff for six years (1959 -1965), which he also took as reparation for the slur on his father who was forced to resign as First Sea Lord in 1914 after being falsely accused of pro-German sympathy.
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Marriage and descendants
Mountbatten - known to friends and family as "Dickie" - was a strong influence in the upbringing of his great-nephew, The Prince of Wales. He was married on 18 July 1922 to Hon. Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley, daughter of Wilfred Ashley, 1st Baron Mount Temple. Lady Mountbatten reportedly had affairs with Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and American actor-singer Paul Robeson. Mountbatten also indulged in affairs, yet he and Edwina remained devoted to each other until her death on February 21, 1960 in Jesselton, North Borneo. They had two children: Patricia Mountbatten, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma (born February 14, 1924), and Lady Pamela Carmen Louise (born April 19, 1929).
Since Mountbatten had no sons, when he was created Viscount on August 23, 1946, then Earl and Baron on October 28, 1947, the Letters Patent were drafted such that the titles would pass to the female line. This was to recognise his wartime service, and the regard he was held by the British Royal Family, as well as to atone for the disservice done to his father. Thus, on his death, the titles passed to Patricia.
Death
On 27 August 1979, while holidaying as usual in his summer home in Sligo in the Republic of Ireland he was killed by a bomb planted in his boat in Donegal Bay. The Provisional IRA admitted responsibility for the bomb. Other victims of the assassination were:
- The Dowager Lady Brabourne: his elder daughter's mother-in-law (aged 82).
- The Hon. Nicholas Knatchbull, his elder daughter's fourth son (aged 14).
- Paul Maxwell: a local boy working as a crew member (aged 15).
The killing of Mountbatten, and the accompanying murder of eighteen soldiers the same day in a bombing in Northern Ireland, led to public outrage in Ireland. The President of Ireland, Patrick Hillery, and the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Jack Lynch, both attended a memorial service for Lord Mountbatten of Burma in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. On 23 November 1979, Thomas McMahon was sentenced to life in prison for the assassination.
Further reading
- Mountbatten: the official biography, by Philip Ziegler (Collins, 1985)
- Eminent Churchillians, by Andrew Roberts (Phoenix Press, 1994). The author states that it "makes the case for the impeachment of the last Viceroy of India, on the grounds that his cheating over the India-Pakistan frontier and his headlong rush towards partition led to around one million deaths in Punjab and the North-West Frontier in 1947-48".
| Preceded by: Sir Rhoderick McGrigor | First Sea Lord 1955–1959 | Succeeded by: Sir Charles Lambe
fr:Louis Mountbatten he:לואי מאונטבטן ja:ルイス・マウントバッテン pl:Louis Mountbatten sv:Lord Mountbatten |
Categories: 1900 births | 1979 deaths | Viceroys of India | Governors-General of India | Earls in the Peerage of the United Kingdom | Royal Navy admirals | Knights of the Garter | Assassinated politicians | British World War II people | Military of Singapore under British rule | IRA murder victims | British murder victims