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Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

April 01, 2023

"Louis Mountbatten" redirects here. For his father, the 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, see Prince Louis of Battenberg.

Albert Victor Nicholas Louis Francis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma[1][2][n 1] (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British naval officer, colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family. Mountbatten, who was of German descent, was born in the United Kingdom to the prominent Battenberg family and was a maternal uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a second cousin of King George VI. He joined the Royal Navy during the First World War and was appointed Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, in the Second World War. He later served as the last Viceroy of British India and briefly as the first Governor-General of the Dominion of India.

The Right Honourable
The Earl Mountbatten of Burma
KG GCB OM GCSI GCIE GCVO DSO PC ADC FRS
Portrait by Allan Warren, 1976
Chief of the Defence Staff
In office
13 July 1959 – 15 July 1965
Prime Minister
Preceded bySir William Dickson
Succeeded bySir Richard Hull
First Sea Lord
In office
18 April 1955 – 19 October 1959
Prime Minister
Preceded bySir Rhoderick McGrigor
Succeeded bySir Charles Lambe
Governor-General of India
In office
15 August 1947 – 21 June 1948
MonarchGeorge VI
Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru
Preceded byHimself (As Viceroy and Governor-General)
Succeeded byC. Rajagopalachari
Viceroy of British India
In office
21 February 1947 – 15 August 1947
MonarchGeorge VI
Prime MinisterClement Attlee
Preceded byThe Viscount Wavell
Succeeded by
Member of the House of Lords
Hereditary peerage
13 June 1946 – 27 August 1979
Preceded byPeerage established
Succeeded byThe 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma
Personal details
Born
Prince Louis of Battenberg

(1900-06-25)25 June 1900
Frogmore House, Windsor, Berkshire, England
Died27 August 1979(1979-08-27) (aged 79)
Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland
Manner of deathAssassination
Resting placeRomsey Abbey
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1922; died 1960)​
Children
Parents
Alma materChrist's College, Cambridge
Occupation
Military service
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Branch/serviceRoyal Navy
Years of service1913–1965
RankAdmiral of the Fleet
Commands
See list
Battles/wars
AwardsSee list

Mountbatten attended the Royal Naval College, Osborne, before entering the Royal Navy in 1916. He saw action during the closing phase of the First World War, and after the war briefly attended Christ's College, Cambridge. During the interwar period, Mountbatten continued to pursue his naval career, specialising in naval communications.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Mountbatten commanded the destroyer HMS Kelly and the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. He saw considerable action in Norway, in the English Channel, and in the Mediterranean. In August 1941, he received command of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. He was appointed chief of Combined Operations and a member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in early 1942, and organised the raids on St Nazaire and Dieppe. In August 1943, Mountbatten became Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command and oversaw the recapture of Burma and Singapore from the Japanese by the end of 1945. For his service during the war, Mountbatten was created viscount in 1946 and earl the following year.

In March 1947, Mountbatten was appointed Viceroy of India and oversaw the Partition of India into India and Pakistan. He then served as the first Governor-General of India until June 1948. In 1952, Mountbatten was appointed commander-in-chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet and NATO Commander Allied Forces Mediterranean. From 1955 to 1959, he was First Sea Lord, a position that had been held by his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, some forty years earlier. Thereafter he served as chief of the Defence Staff until 1965, making him the longest-serving professional head of the British Armed Forces to date. During this period Mountbatten also served as chairman of the NATO Military Committee for a year.

In August 1979, Mountbatten was assassinated by a bomb planted aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland, by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He received a ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey and was buried in Romsey Abbey in Hampshire.

Early life

Mountbatten, then named Prince Louis of Battenberg, was born on 25 June 1900 at Frogmore House in the Home Park, Windsor, Berkshire.[3] He was the youngest child and the second son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine.[4] Mountbatten's maternal grandparents were Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, who was a daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. His paternal grandparents were Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julia, Princess of Battenberg.[5] Mountbatten's paternal grandparents' marriage was morganatic because his grandmother was not of royal lineage; as a result, he and his father were styled "Serene Highness" rather than "Grand Ducal Highness", were not eligible to be titled Princes of Hesse, and were given the less exalted Battenberg title. Mountbatten's elder siblings were Princess Alice of Battenberg (later Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark, mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh), Princess Louise of Battenberg (later Queen Louise of Sweden), and Prince George of Battenberg (later George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven).[5]

Mountbatten was baptised in the large drawing room of Frogmore House on 17 July 1900 by the Dean of Windsor, Philip Eliot. His godparents were Queen Victoria, Nicholas II of Russia (represented by the child's father) and Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg (represented by Lord Edward Clinton).[6] He wore the original 1841 royal christening gown at the ceremony.[6]

Mountbatten's nickname among family and friends was "Dickie"; however "Richard" was not among his given names. This was because his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, had suggested the nickname of "Nicky", but to avoid confusion with the many Nickys of the Russian Imperial Family ("Nicky" was particularly used to refer to Nicholas II, the last Tsar), "Nicky" was changed to "Dickie".[7]

Mountbatten was educated at home for the first 10 years of his life; he was then sent to Lockers Park School in Hertfordshire[8] and on to the Royal Naval College, Osborne, in May 1913.[9]

Mountbatten's mother's younger sister was Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. In childhood he visited the Imperial Court of Russia at St Petersburg and became intimate with the Russian Imperial Family, harbouring romantic feelings towards his maternal first cousin Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, whose photograph he kept at his bedside for the rest of his life.[10]

From 1914 to 1918, Britain and its allies were at war with the Central Powers, led by the German Empire. To appease British nationalist sentiment, King George V issued a royal proclamation changing the name of the British royal house from the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor. The king's British relatives followed suit with Mountbatten's father dropping his German titles and name and adopting the surname Mountbatten, an anglicization of Battenberg. His father was subsequently created Marquess of Milford Haven.[11]

Career

Early career

Mountbatten was posted as midshipman to the battlecruiser HMS Lion in July 1916 and, after seeing action in August 1916, transferred to the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth during the closing phases of the First World War.[9] In June 1917, when the royal family stopped using their German names and titles and adopted the more British-sounding "Windsor", Mountbatten acquired the courtesy title appropriate to a younger son of a marquess, becoming known as Lord Louis Mountbatten (Lord Louis for short) until he was created a peer in his own right in 1946.[12] He paid a visit of ten days to the Western Front, in July 1918.[13]

 
Portrait by Philip de László, 1925

While still an acting-sub-lieutenant, Mountbatten was appointed first lieutenant (second-in-command) of the P-class sloop HMS P. 31 on 13 October 1918 and was confirmed as a substantive sub-lieutenant on 15 January 1919. HMS P. 31 took part in the Peace River Pageant on 4 April 1919. Mountbatten attended Christ's College, Cambridge, for two terms, starting in October 1919, where he studied English literature (including John Milton and Lord Byron) in a programme designed to augment the education of junior officers which had been curtailed by the war.[14][15] He was elected for a term to the Standing Committee of the Cambridge Union Society and was suspected of sympathy for the Labour Party, then emerging as a potential party of government for the first time.[16]

 
Prince Edward with his staff all wearing kimono (yukata) during the Pacific visit to Japan in 1922. (Mountbatten standing, first from left). The Rising Sun Flag in the background.

Mountbatten was posted to the battlecruiser HMS Renown in March 1920 and accompanied Edward, Prince of Wales, on a royal tour of Australia in her.[12] He was promoted lieutenant on 15 April 1920.[17] HMS Renown returned to Portsmouth on 11 October 1920.[18] Early in 1921 Royal Navy personnel were used for civil defence duties as serious industrial unrest seemed imminent. Mountbatten had to command a platoon of stokers, many of whom had never handled a rifle before, in northern England.[18] He transferred to the battlecruiser HMS Repulse in March 1921 and accompanied the Prince of Wales on a Royal tour of India and Japan.[12][19] Edward and Mountbatten formed a close friendship during the trip.[12] Mountbatten survived the deep defence cuts known as the Geddes Axe. Fifty-two percent of the officers of his year had had to leave the Royal Navy by the end of 1923; although he was highly regarded by his superiors, it was rumoured that wealthy and well-connected officers were more likely to be retained.[20] Mountbatten was posted to the battleship HMS Revenge in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1923.[12]

Pursuing his interests in technological development and gadgetry, Mountbatten joined the Portsmouth Signals School in August 1924 and then went on briefly to study electronics at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.[12] Mountbatten became a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), now the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).[21] He was posted to the battleship HMS Centurion in the Reserve Fleet in 1926 and became Assistant Fleet Wireless and Signals Officer of the Mediterranean Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Roger Keyes in January 1927.[12] Promoted lieutenant-commander on 15 April 1928,[22] Mountbatten returned to the Signals School in July 1929 as Senior Wireless Instructor.[12] He was appointed Fleet Wireless Officer to the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1931 and, having been promoted commander on 31 December 1932,[23] was posted to the battleship HMS Resolution.[12]

In 1934, Mountbatten was appointed to his first command – the destroyer HMS Daring.[12] His ship was a new destroyer, which he was to sail to Singapore and exchange for an older ship, HMS Wishart.[12] He successfully brought Wishart back to port in Malta and then attended the funeral of King George V in January 1936.[24] Mountbatten was appointed a personal naval aide-de-camp to King Edward VIII on 23 June 1936[25] and, having joined the Naval Air Division of the Admiralty in July 1936,[26] he attended the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937.[27] Mountbatten was promoted captain on 30 June 1937[28] and was then given command of the destroyer HMS Kelly in June 1939.[29]

Within the Admiralty, Mountbatten was called "The Master of Disaster" for his penchant of getting into messes.[30][31]

Second World War

 
Mountbatten inspecting sailors before the Bruneval Raid, February 1942

When war broke out in September 1939, Mountbatten became Captain (D) (commander) of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla aboard HMS Kelly, which became famous for its exploits.[26] In late 1939 he brought the Duke of Windsor back from exile in France and in early May 1940 Mountbatten led a British convoy in through the fog to evacuate the Allied forces participating in the Namsos Campaign during the Norwegian Campaign.[29]

On the night of 9–10 May 1940, Kelly was torpedoed amidships by a German E-boat S 31 off the Dutch coast, and Mountbatten thereafter commanded the 5th Destroyer Flotilla from the destroyer HMS Javelin.[29] On 29 November 1940 the 5th Flotilla engaged three German destroyers off Lizard Point, Cornwall. Mountbatten turned to port to match a German course change. This was "a rather disastrous move as the directors swung off and lost target"[32] and it resulted in Javelin being struck by two torpedoes. He rejoined Kelly in December 1940, by which time the torpedo damage had been repaired.[29]

Kelly was sunk by German dive bombers on 23 May 1941 during the Battle of Crete;[33] the incident serving as the basis for Noël Coward's film In Which We Serve.[34] Coward was a personal friend of Mountbatten and copied some of his speeches into the film.[33] Mountbatten was mentioned in despatches on 9 August 1940[35] and 21 March 1941[36] and awarded the Distinguished Service Order in January 1941.[37]

 
Walter Short, Mountbatten and Husband E. Kimmel in Hawaii 1941

In August 1941, Mountbatten was appointed captain of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious which lay in Norfolk, Virginia, for repairs following action at Malta in January.[33] During this period of relative inactivity, he paid a flying visit to Pearl Harbor, three months before the Japanese attack on it. Mountbatten, appalled at the US naval base's lack of preparedness, drawing on Japan's history of launching wars with surprise attacks as well as the successful British surprise attack at the Battle of Taranto which had effectively knocked Italy's fleet out of the war, and the sheer effectiveness of aircraft against warships, accurately predicted that the US would enter the war after a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.[33][38]

 
Clockwise from lower right, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Sir Hastings 'Pug' Ismay, Mountbatten: January 1943 at the Casablanca conference.

Mountbatten was a favourite of Winston Churchill.[39] On 27 October 1941, Mountbatten replaced Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations Headquarters and was promoted to commodore.[33]

His duties in this role included inventing new technical aids to assist with opposed landings.[26] Noteworthy technical achievements of Mountbatten and his staff include the construction of "PLUTO", an underwater oil pipeline to Normandy, an artificial Mulberry harbour constructed of concrete caissons and sunken ships, and the development of tank-landing ships.[26] Another project Mountbatten proposed to Churchill was Project Habakkuk. It was to be an unsinkable 600-metre aircraft carrier made from reinforced ice ("Pykrete"): Habakkuk was never carried out due to its enormous cost.[26]

 
Mountbatten in 1943

As commander of Combined Operations, Mountbatten and his staff planned the highly successful Bruneval raid, which gained important information and captured part of a German Würzburg radar installation and one of the machine's technicians on 27 February 1942. It was Mountbatten who recognised that surprise and speed were essential to capture the radar, and saw that an airborne assault was the only viable method.[40]

On 18 March 1942, he was promoted to the acting rank of vice admiral and given the honorary ranks of lieutenant general[41] and air marshal to have the authority to carry out his duties in Combined Operations; and, despite the misgivings of General Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff,[42] Mountbatten was placed in the Chiefs of Staff Committee.[43] He was in large part responsible for the planning and organisation of the St Nazaire Raid on 28 March, which put out of action one of the most heavily defended docks in Nazi-occupied France until well after the war's end, the ramifications of which contributed to allied supremacy in the Battle of the Atlantic. After these two successes came the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942. He was central in the planning and promotion of the raid on the port of Dieppe. The raid was a marked failure, with casualties of almost 60%, the great majority of them Canadians.[33] Following the Dieppe Raid, Mountbatten became a controversial figure in Canada, with the Royal Canadian Legion distancing itself from him during his visits there during his later career.[44] His relations with Canadian veterans, who blamed him for the losses, "remained frosty" after the war.[45]

 
Mountbatten during his tour of the Arakan Front in Burma in February 1944

Mountbatten claimed that the lessons learned from the Dieppe Raid were necessary for planning the Normandy invasion on D-Day nearly two years later. However, military historians such as Major-General Julian Thompson, a former member of the Royal Marines, have written that these lessons should not have needed a debacle such as Dieppe to be recognised.[46] Nevertheless, as a direct result of the failings of the Dieppe Raid, the British made several innovations, most notably Hobart's Funnies – specialised armoured vehicles which, in the course of the Normandy Landings, undoubtedly saved many lives on those three beachheads upon which Commonwealth soldiers were landing (Gold Beach, Juno Beach and Sword Beach).[47]

In August 1943, Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command (SEAC) with promotion to acting full admiral.[33] His less practical ideas were sidelined by an experienced planning staff led by Lieutenant-Colonel James Allason, though some, such as a proposal to launch an amphibious assault near Rangoon, got as far as Churchill before being quashed.[48]

 
Mountbatten's address on the steps of Singapore's Municipal Building after the surrender

British interpreter Hugh Lunghi recounted an embarrassing episode during the Potsdam Conference when Mountbatten, desiring to receive an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, repeatedly attempted to impress Joseph Stalin with his former connections to the Russian imperial family. The attempt fell predictably flat, with Stalin dryly inquiring whether "it was some time ago that he had been there". Says Lunghi, "The meeting was embarrassing because Stalin was so unimpressed. He offered no invitation. Mountbatten left with his tail between his legs."[49]

During his time as Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Theatre, his command oversaw the recapture of Burma from the Japanese by General Sir William Slim.[50] A personal high point was the receipt of the Japanese surrender in Singapore when British troops returned to the island to receive the formal surrender of Japanese forces in the region led by General Itagaki Seishiro on 12 September 1945, codenamed Operation Tiderace.[51] South East Asia Command was disbanded in May 1946 and Mountbatten returned home with the substantive rank of rear-admiral.[52] That year, he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, of Romsey in the County of Southampton, as a victory title for war service. He was then in 1947 further created Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Baron Romsey, of Romsey in the County of Southampton.[53][54]

Following the war, Mountbatten was known to have largely shunned the Japanese for the rest of his life out of respect for his men killed during the war and, as per his will, Japan was not invited to send diplomatic representatives to his funeral in 1979, though he did meet Emperor Hirohito during his state visit to Britain in 1971, reportedly at the urging of the Queen.[55]

Last Viceroy of India

Main article: Partition of India

Mountbatten's experience in the region and in particular his perceived Labour sympathies at that time led to Clement Attlee advising King George VI to appoint him Viceroy of India on 20 February 1947[56][57] charged with overseeing the transition of British India to independence no later than 30 June 1948. Mountbatten's instructions were to avoid partition and preserve a united India as a result of the transfer of power but authorised him to adapt to a changing situation in order to get Britain out promptly with minimal reputational damage.[58][59] Mountbatten arrived in India on 22 March 1947 by air, from London. In the evening, he was taken to his residence and, two days later, he took the Viceregal Oath. His arrival saw large-scale communal riots in Delhi, Bombay and Rawalpindi. Mountbatten concluded that the situation was too volatile to wait even a year before granting independence to India. Although his advisers favoured a gradual transfer of independence, Mountbatten decided the only way forward was a quick and orderly transfer of power before 1947 was out. In his view, any longer would mean civil war.[60] Mountbatten also hurried so he could return to his senior technical Navy courses.[61][62]

 
Lord and Lady Mountbatten at Mussoorie with Congress leader Sardar Patel, his daughter Manibehn Patel and Nehru in the background
 
Lord and Lady Mountbatten with Mahatma Gandhi, 1947

Mountbatten was fond of Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru and his liberal outlook for the country. He felt differently about the Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, but was aware of his power, stating "If it could be said that any single man held the future of India in the palm of his hand in 1947, that man was Mohammad Ali Jinnah."[62] During his meeting with Jinnah on 5 April 1947,[63] Mountbatten tried to persuade him of a united India, citing the difficult task of dividing the mixed states of Punjab and Bengal, but the Muslim leader was unyielding in his goal of establishing a separate Muslim state called Pakistan.[64]

Given the British government's recommendations to grant independence quickly, Mountbatten concluded that a united India was an unachievable goal and resigned himself to a plan for partition, creating the independent nations of India and Pakistan.[26] Mountbatten set a date for the transfer of power from the British to the Indians, arguing that a fixed timeline would convince Indians of his and the British government's sincerity in working towards a swift and efficient independence, excluding all possibilities of stalling the process.[65]

 
Mountbatten's proposed flag for India, consisting of the flag of the Indian National Congress defaced with a Union Jack in the canton. It was rejected by Nehru, as he felt that the more extremist members of Congress would see the inclusion of the Union Jack on an Indian flag as pandering to the British.[66]
 
Mountbatten's proposed flag for Pakistan, consisting of the flag of the Muslim League defaced with a Union Jack in the canton. It was rejected by Jinnah, as he felt that a flag featuring a Christian Cross alongside the Islamic Crescent would be unacceptable to the Muslims of Pakistan.[66]

Among the Indian leaders, Mahatma Gandhi emphatically insisted on maintaining a united India and for a while successfully rallied people to this goal. During his meeting with Mountbatten, Gandhi asked Mountbatten to invite Jinnah to form a new central government, but Mountbatten never uttered a word of Gandhi's ideas to Jinnah.[67] When Mountbatten's timeline offered the prospect of attaining independence soon, sentiments took a different turn. Given Mountbatten's determination, Nehru and Patel's inability to deal with the Muslim League and, lastly, Jinnah's obstinacy, all Indian party leaders (except Gandhi) acquiesced to Jinnah's plan to divide India,[68] which in turn eased Mountbatten's task. Mountbatten also developed a strong relationship with the Indian princes, who ruled those portions of India not directly under British rule. His intervention was decisive in persuading the vast majority of them to see advantages in opting to join the Indian Union.[69] On one hand, the integration of the princely states can be viewed as one of the positive aspects of his legacy.[70] But on the other, the refusal of Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, and Junagadh to join one of the dominions led to future wars between Pakistan and India.[71]

Mountbatten brought forward the date of the partition from June 1948 to 15 August 1947.[72] The uncertainty of the borders caused Muslims and Hindus to move into the direction where they felt they would get the majority. Hindus and Muslims were thoroughly terrified, and the Muslim movement from the East was balanced by the similar movement of Hindus from the West.[73] A boundary committee chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe was charged with drawing boundaries for the new nations. With a mandate to leave as many Hindus and Sikhs in India and as many Muslims in Pakistan as possible, Radcliffe came up with a map that split the two countries along the Punjab and Bengal borders. This left 14 million people on the "wrong" side of the border, and very many of them fled to "safety" on the other side when the new lines were announced.[60][74]

 
Mountbatten with Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of sovereign India, in Government House. Lady Mountbatten is standing to their left.

When India and Pakistan attained independence at midnight of 14–15 August 1947, Mountbatten was alone in his study at the Viceroy's house saying to himself just before the clock struck midnight that for still a few minutes, he was the most powerful man on Earth. At 11:58 PM, as a last act of showmanship, he created Joan Falkiner, the Australian wife of the Nawab of Palanpur, a highness, an act that was apparently one of his favourite duties that was annulled at the stroke of midnight.[75]

Mountbatten remained in New Delhi for 10 months, serving as the first governor-general of an independent India until June 1948.[76] On Mountbatten's advice, India took the issue of Kashmir to the newly formed United Nations in January 1948. This issue would become a lasting thorn in his legacy and one that is not resolved to this day.[77] Accounts differ on the future which Mountbatten desired for Kashmir. Pakistani accounts suggest that Mountbatten favoured the accession of Kashmir to India, citing his close relationship to Nehru. Mountbatten's own account says that he simply wanted the maharaja, Hari Singh, to make up his mind. The viceroy made several attempts to mediate between the Congress leaders, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Hari Singh on issues relating to the accession of Kashmir, though he was largely unsuccessful in resolving the conflict.[78] After the tribal invasion of Kashmir, it was on his suggestion that India moved to secure the accession of Kashmir from Hari Singh before sending in military forces for his defence.[79]

 
Lord and Lady Mountbatten with Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Notwithstanding the self-promotion of his own part in Indian independence – notably in the television series The Life and Times of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma, produced by his son-in-law Lord Brabourne, and Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins (of which he was the main quoted source) – his record is seen as very mixed. One common view is that he hastened the process of independence unduly and recklessly, foreseeing vast disruption and loss of life and not wanting this to occur on his watch, but thereby actually helping it to occur (albeit in an indirect manner), especially in Punjab and Bengal.[80] John Kenneth Galbraith, the Canadian-American Harvard University economist, who advised governments of India during the 1950s and was an intimate of Nehru who served as the American ambassador from 1961 to 1963, was a particularly harsh critic of Mountbatten in this regard.[81] However, another view is that the British were forced to expedite the partition process to avoid involvement in a potential civil war with law and order having already broken down and Britain with limited resources after the Second World War.[82][83] According to historian Lawrence James, Mountbatten was left with no other option but to cut and run, with the alternative being involvement in a potential civil war that would be difficult to get out of.[82]

The creation of Pakistan was never emotionally accepted by many British leaders, among them Mountbatten.[84] Mountbatten clearly expressed his lack of support and faith in the Muslim League's idea of Pakistan.[85] Jinnah refused Mountbatten's offer to serve as Governor-General of Pakistan.[86] When Mountbatten was asked by Collins and Lapierre if he would have sabotaged the creation of Pakistan had he known that Jinnah was dying of tuberculosis, he replied, "Most probably".[87] After his tenure as Governor-General concluded, Mountbatten continued to enjoy close relations with Nehru and the post-Independence Indian leadership, and was welcomed as a former governor-general of India on subsequent visits to the country, including during an official trip in March 1956. The Pakistani government, by contrast, never forgave Mountbatten for his perceived hostile attitude towards Pakistan and deemed him Persona non grata, barring him from transiting their airspace during the same visit.[88]

Career after India

 
Mountbatten inspects Malayan troops in Kensington Gardens in 1946

After India, Mountbatten served as commander of the 1st Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean Fleet and, having been granted the substantive rank of vice-admiral on 22 June 1949,[89] he became Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet in April 1950.[76] He became Fourth Sea Lord at the Admiralty in June 1950. He then returned to the Mediterranean to serve as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet and NATO Commander Allied Forces Mediterranean from June 1952.[76] He was promoted to the substantive rank of full admiral on 27 February 1953.[90] In March 1953, he was appointed Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Queen.[91]

 
Mountbatten arrives on board HMS Glasgow at Malta to assume command of the Mediterranean Fleet, 16 May 1952

Mountbatten served his final posting at the Admiralty as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from April 1955 to July 1959, the position which his father had held some forty years before. This was the first time in Royal Naval history that a father and son had both attained such high office.[92] He was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 22 October 1956.[93]

In the Suez Crisis of 1956, Mountbatten strongly advised his old friend Prime Minister Anthony Eden against the Conservative government's plans to seize the Suez canal in conjunction with France and Israel. He argued that such a move would destabilize the Middle East, undermine the authority of the United Nations, divide the Commonwealth and diminish Britain's global standing. His advice was not taken. Eden insisted that Mountbatten not resign. Instead, he worked hard to prepare the Royal Navy for war with characteristic professionalism and thoroughness.[94][95][96]

Despite his military rank, Mountbatten was ignorant as to the physics involved in a nuclear explosion and had to be reassured that the fission reactions from the Bikini Atoll tests would not spread through the oceans and blow up the planet.[97] As Mountbatten became more familiar with this new form of weaponry, he increasingly grew opposed to its use in combat yet at the same time he realised the potential for nuclear energy, especially with regard to submarines. Mountbatten expressed his feelings towards the use of nuclear weapons in combat in his article "A Military Commander Surveys The Nuclear Arms Race", which was published shortly after his death in International Security in the Winter of 1979–1980.[98]

After leaving the Admiralty, Mountbatten took the position of Chief of the Defence Staff.[76] He served in this post for six years during which he was able to consolidate the three service departments of the military branch into a single Ministry of Defence.[99] Ian Jacob, co-author of the 1963 Report on the Central Organisation of Defence that served as the basis of these reforms, described Mountbatten as "universally mistrusted in spite of his great qualities".[100] On their election in October 1964, the Wilson ministry had to decide whether to renew his appointment the following July. The Defence Secretary, Denis Healey, interviewed the forty most senior officials in the Ministry of Defence; only one, Sir Kenneth Strong, a personal friend of Mountbatten, recommended his reappointment.[100] "When I told Dickie of my decision not to reappoint him," recalls Healey, "he slapped his thigh and roared with delight; but his eyes told a different story."[100]

Mountbatten was appointed colonel of the Life Guards and Gold Stick in Waiting on 29 January 1965[101] and Life Colonel Commandant of the Royal Marines the same year.[102] He was Governor of the Isle of Wight from 20 July 1965[103] and then the first Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight from 1 April 1974.[104]

 
Mountbatten with John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office, Washington, D.C., 11 April 1961
 
Louis Mountbatten during a 1967 visit to Israel

Mountbatten was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society[26] and had received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1968.[105]

In 1969, Mountbatten tried unsuccessfully to persuade his cousin, the Spanish pretender Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, to ease the eventual accession of his son, Juan Carlos, to the Spanish throne by signing a declaration of abdication while in exile.[106] The next year Mountbatten attended an official White House dinner during which he took the opportunity to have a 20-minute conversation with Richard Nixon and Secretary of State William P. Rogers, about which he later wrote, "I was able to talk to the President a bit about both Tino [Constantine II of Greece] and Juanito [Juan Carlos of Spain] to try and put over their respective points of view about Greece and Spain, and how I felt the US could help them."[106] In January 1971, Nixon hosted Juan Carlos and his wife Sofia (sister of the exiled King Constantine) during a visit to Washington and later that year The Washington Post published an article alleging that Nixon's administration was seeking to persuade Franco to retire in favour of the young Bourbon prince.[106]

From 1967 until 1978, Mountbatten was president of the United World Colleges Organisation, then represented by a single college: that of Atlantic College in South Wales. Mountbatten supported the United World Colleges and encouraged heads of state, politicians, and personalities throughout the world to share his interest. Under his presidency and personal involvement, the United World College of South East Asia was established in Singapore in 1971, followed by the United World College of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1974. In 1978, Mountbatten passed the presidency of the college to his great-nephew, the Prince of Wales.[107]

Mountbatten also helped to launch the International Baccalaureate; in 1971 he presented the first IB diplomas in the Greek Theatre of the International School of Geneva, Switzerland.[108][109][110]

In 1975 Mountbatten finally visited the Soviet Union, leading the delegation from UK as personal representative of Queen Elizabeth II at the celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary of Victory Day in Second World War in Moscow.[111]

Alleged plots against Harold Wilson

Main article: Harold Wilson conspiracy theories § The 1968 plot

Peter Wright, in his 1987 book Spycatcher, claimed that in May 1968 Mountbatten attended a private meeting with press baron Cecil King and the government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Solly Zuckerman. Wright alleged that "up to thirty" MI5 officers had joined a secret campaign to undermine the crisis-stricken Labour government of Harold Wilson and that King was an MI5 agent. In the meeting, King allegedly urged Mountbatten to become the leader of a government of national salvation. Solly Zuckerman pointed out that it was "rank treachery" and the idea came to nothing because of Mountbatten's reluctance to act.[112] In contrast, Andrew Lownie has suggested that it took the intervention of the Queen to dissuade Mountbatten from plotting against Wilson.[113]

In 2006, the BBC documentary The Plot Against Harold Wilson alleged that there had been another plot involving Mountbatten to oust Wilson during his second term in office (1974–1976). The period was characterised by high inflation, increasing unemployment, and widespread industrial unrest. The alleged plot revolved around right-wing former military figures who were supposedly building private armies to counter the perceived threat from trade unions and the Soviet Union. They believed that the Labour Party was unable and unwilling to counter these developments and that Wilson was either a Soviet agent or at the very least a Communist sympathiser – claims Wilson strongly denied. The documentary makers alleged that a coup was planned to overthrow Wilson and replace him with Mountbatten using the private armies and sympathisers in the military and MI5.[114]

The first official history of MI5, The Defence of the Realm (2009), implied that there was a plot against Wilson and that MI5 did have a file on him. Yet it also made clear that the plot was in no way official and that any activity centred on a small group of discontented officers. This much had already been confirmed by former cabinet secretary Lord Hunt, who concluded in a secret inquiry conducted in 1996 that "there is absolutely no doubt at all that a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5 ... a lot of them like Peter Wright who were right-wing, malicious and had serious personal grudges – gave vent to these and spread damaging malicious stories about that Labour government."[115]

Personal life

Marriage

 
Louis and Edwina Mountbatten

Mountbatten was married on 18 July 1922 to Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley, daughter of Wilfred William Ashley, later 1st Baron Mount Temple, himself a grandson of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. She was the favourite granddaughter of the Edwardian magnate Sir Ernest Cassel and the principal heir to his fortune. The couple spent heavily on households, luxuries, and entertainment.[12] There followed a honeymoon tour of European royal courts and America which included a visit to Niagara Falls (because "all honeymooners went there").[7] During their honeymoon in California, the newlyweds starred in a silent home movie by Charlie Chaplin called Nice And Friendly, which was not shown in cinemas.[116][117]

Mountbatten admitted: "Edwina and I spent all our married lives getting into other people's beds."[118] He maintained an affair for several years with Yola Letellier,[119] the wife of Henri Letellier, publisher of Le Journal and mayor of Deauville (1925–28).[120] Yola Letellier's life story was the inspiration for Colette's novel Gigi.[119]

After Edwina died in 1960, Mountbatten was involved in relationships with young women, according to his daughter Patricia, his secretary John Barratt, his valet Bill Evans, and William Stadiem, an employee of Madame Claude.[121] He had a long-running affair with American actress Shirley MacLaine, whom he met in the 1960s.[122]

Sexuality and child abuse allegations

Ron Perks, Mountbatten's driver in Malta in 1948, alleged that he used to visit the Red House, an upmarket gay brothel in Rabat used by naval officers.[123] Andrew Lownie, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, wrote that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintained files regarding Mountbatten's alleged homosexuality.[124] Lownie also interviewed several young men who claimed to have been in a relationship with Mountbatten. John Barratt, Mountbatten's personal and private secretary for 20 years,[125] has said Mountbatten was not a homosexual, and that it would have been impossible for such a fact to have been hidden from him.[121]

In 2019, files became public showing that the FBI knew in the 1940s of allegations that Mountbatten was homosexual and a paedophile.[126] The FBI file on Mountbatten, begun after he took on the role of Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia in 1944, describes Mountbatten and his wife Edwina as "persons of extremely low morals", and contains a claim by American author Elizabeth, Baroness Decies, that Mountbatten was known to be a homosexual and had "a perversion for young boys".[124][127] Norman Nield, Mountbatten's driver from 1942 to 1943, told the tabloid New Zealand Truth that he transported young boys aged 8 to 12 who had been procured for the Admiral to Mountbatten's official residence and was paid to keep quiet. Robin Bryans had also claimed to the Irish magazine Now that Mountbatten and Anthony Blunt, along with others, were part of a ring that engaged in homosexual orgies and procured boys in their first year at public schools such as the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen. Former residents of the Kincora Boys' Home in Belfast have asserted that they were trafficked to Mountbatten at Classiebawn Castle, his residence in Mullaghmore, County Sligo.[128][129][130] These claims were dismissed by the Historical Institution Abuse (HIA) Inquiry.[131][121][132] The HIA stated that the article making the original allegations "did not give any basis for the assertions that any of these people [Mountbatten and others] were connected with Kincora".[131]

In October 2022 Arthur Smyth, a former resident of Kincora, waived his anonymity to make allegations of child abuse against Mountbatten.[133] The allegations are part of a civil case against state authorities responsible for care of children in Kincora.[133]

Daughter as heir

Lord and Lady Mountbatten had two daughters: Patricia Knatchbull (14 February 1924 – 13 June 2017),[134] sometime lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II, and Lady Pamela Hicks (born 19 April 1929), who accompanied them to India in 1947–1948 and was also sometime lady-in-waiting to the Queen.[5]

Since Mountbatten had no sons when he was created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, of Romsey in the County of Southampton on 27 August 1946[135] and then Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Baron Romsey, in the County of Southampton on 18 October 1947,[136] the Letters Patent were drafted such that in the event he left no sons or issue in the male line, the titles could pass to his daughters, in order of seniority of birth.[54]

Leisure interests

Mountbatten was passionate about genealogy, an interest he shared with other European royalty and nobility; according to Ziegler, he spent a great deal of his leisure time in studying his links with European royal houses.[137] From 1957 until his death, Lord Mountbatten was Patron of the Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society.[138] He was equally passionate about orders, decorations and military ranks and uniforms, though he himself considered this interest to be a sign of vanity and constantly tried to distance himself from it, with limited success.[139] Over the course of his career, he consistently attempted to secure as many orders and decorations as possible.[140] Particular about details of dress, Mountbatten took an interest in fashion design, introducing trouser zips, a tail-coat with broad, high lapels and a "buttonless waistcoat" that could be pulled on over the head.[141] In 1949, having by then relinquished the office of Governor-General of India but retaining a keen interest in Indian affairs, he designed new flags, insignia, and details of uniforms for the Indian Armed Forces ahead of the transition from British dominion to republic; many of his designs were implemented and remain in use.[142]

Like many members of the royal family, Mountbatten was an aficionado of polo. He received US patent 1,993,334 in 1931 for a polo stick.[143] Mountbatten introduced the sport to the Royal Navy in the 1920s and wrote a book on the subject.[7] He also served as Commodore of Emsworth Sailing Club in Hampshire from 1931.[144] He was a long-serving Patron of the Society for Nautical Research (1951–1979).[145] Apart from official documents, Mountbatten was not much of a reader, though he liked P. G. Wodehouse's books. He enjoyed the cinema; his favourite stars were Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Grace Kelly and Shirley MacLaine. In general, however, he had a limited interest in the arts.[146]

Mentorship of King Charles III

Mountbatten was a strong influence in the upbringing of his grand-nephew, King Charles III, and later as a mentor – "Honorary Grandfather" and "Honorary Grandson", they fondly called each other according to the Jonathan Dimbleby biography of the then-Prince – though according to both the Ziegler biography of Mountbatten and the Dimbleby biography of the Prince, the results may have been mixed. He from time to time strongly upbraided the Prince for showing tendencies towards the idle pleasure-seeking dilettantism of his predecessor as Prince of Wales, King Edward VIII, whom Mountbatten had known well in their youth. Yet he also encouraged the Prince to enjoy the bachelor life while he could, and then to marry a young and inexperienced girl so as to ensure a stable married life.[147]

Mountbatten's qualification for offering advice to this particular heir to the throne was unique; it was he who had arranged the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Dartmouth Royal Naval College on 22 July 1939, taking care to include the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in the invitation, but assigning his nephew, Cadet Prince Philip of Greece, to keep them amused while their parents toured the facility. This was the first recorded meeting of Charles's future parents.[148] But a few months later, Mountbatten's efforts nearly came to naught when he received a letter from his sister Alice in Athens informing him that Philip was visiting her and had agreed to repatriate permanently to Greece. Within days, Philip received a command from his cousin and sovereign, King George II of Greece, to resume his naval career in Britain which, though given without explanation, the young prince obeyed.[149]

In 1974, Mountbatten began corresponding with Charles about a potential marriage to his granddaughter, Hon. Amanda Knatchbull.[150] It was about this time he also recommended that the 25-year-old prince get on with "sowing some wild oats".[150] Charles dutifully wrote to Amanda's mother (who was also his godmother), Lady Brabourne, about his interest. Her answer was supportive, but advised him that she thought her daughter still rather young to be courted.[151]

In February 1975, Charles visited New Delhi to play polo and was shown around Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former Viceroy's House, by Mountbatten.[152]

Four years later, Mountbatten secured an invitation for himself and Amanda to accompany Charles on his planned 1980 tour of India.[151] Their fathers promptly objected. Prince Philip thought that the Indian public's reception would more likely reflect their response to the uncle than to the nephew. Lord Brabourne counselled that the intense scrutiny of the press would be more likely to drive Mountbatten's godson and granddaughter apart than together.[151]

Charles was rescheduled to tour India alone, but Mountbatten did not live to the planned date of departure. When Charles finally did propose marriage to Amanda later in 1979, the circumstances were changed and she refused him.[151]

Television appearances

On 27 April 1977, shortly before his 77th birthday, Mountbatten became the first member of the Royal Family to appear on the TV guest show This Is Your Life.[153] In the UK, 22.22 million people tuned in to watch the programme.[154]

Assassination

Main article: Assassination of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
 
Christ in Triumph over Darkness and Evil by Gabriel Loire (1982) at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, South Africa, in memory of Mountbatten

Mountbatten usually holidayed at his summer home, Classiebawn Castle, on the Mullaghmore Peninsula in County Sligo, in the north-west of Ireland. The village was only 12 miles (19 km) from the border with County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland and near an area known to be used as a cross-border refuge by IRA members.[155][156] In 1978, the IRA had allegedly attempted to shoot Mountbatten as he was aboard his boat, but poor weather had prevented the sniper taking his shot.[157]

On 27 August 1979, Mountbatten went lobster-potting and tuna fishing in his 30-foot (9.1 m) wooden boat, Shadow V, which had been moored in the harbour at Mullaghmore.[156] IRA member Thomas McMahon had slipped onto the unguarded boat the previous night and attached a radio-controlled bomb weighing 50 pounds (23 kg). When Mountbatten and his party had taken the boat just a few hundred yards from the shore, the bomb was detonated. The boat was destroyed by the force of the blast and Mountbatten's legs were almost blown off. Mountbatten, then aged 79, was pulled alive from the water by nearby fishermen, but died from his injuries before being brought to shore.[156][158][159]

Also aboard the boat were his elder daughter Patricia, Lady Brabourne; her husband Lord Brabourne; their twin sons Nicholas and Timothy Knatchbull; Lord Brabourne's mother Doreen, Dowager Lady Brabourne; and Paul Maxwell, a young crew member from Enniskillen in County Fermanagh.[160] Nicholas (aged 14) and Paul (aged 15) were killed by the blast and the others were seriously injured.[161] Doreen, Dowager Lady Brabourne (aged 83), died from her injuries the following day.[162]

The attack triggered outrage and condemnation around the world.[163] The Queen received messages of condolence from leaders including US President Jimmy Carter and Pope John Paul II.[164] Carter expressed his "profound sadness" at the death.[165]

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said:

His death leaves a gap that can never be filled. The British people give thanks for his life and grieve at his passing.[166]

George Colley, the Tánaiste (Deputy head of government) of the Republic of Ireland, said:

No effort will be spared to bring those responsible to justice. It is understood that subversives have claimed responsibility for the explosion. Assuming that police investigations substantiate the claim, I know that the Irish people will join me in condemning this heartless and terrible outrage.[166]

The IRA issued a statement afterward, saying:

The IRA claim responsibility for the execution of Lord Louis Mountbatten. This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country. ... The death of Mountbatten and the tributes paid to him will be seen in sharp contrast to the apathy of the British Government and the English people to the deaths of over three hundred British soldiers, and the deaths of Irish men, women, and children at the hands of their forces.[155][167]

Six weeks later,[168] Sinn Féin vice-president Gerry Adams said of Mountbatten's death:

The IRA gave clear reasons for the execution. I think it is unfortunate that anyone has to be killed, but the furor created by Mountbatten's death showed up the hypocritical attitude of the media establishment. As a member of the House of Lords, Mountbatten was an emotional figure in both British and Irish politics. What the IRA did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other people; and with his war record I don't think he could have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation. He knew the danger involved in coming to this country. In my opinion, the IRA achieved its objective: people started paying attention to what was happening in Ireland.[168]

In 2015, Adams said in an interview, "I stand over what I said then. I'm not one of those people that engages in revisionism. Thankfully the war is over."[169]

On the day of the bombing, the IRA also ambushed and killed eighteen British soldiers at the gates of Narrow Water Castle, just outside Warrenpoint, in County Down in Northern Ireland, sixteen of them from the Parachute Regiment, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush.[170] It was the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles.[156]

Funeral

 
Mountbatten's tomb at Romsey Abbey in Hampshire, near to his home, Broadlands.

On 5 September 1979, Mountbatten received a ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey, which was attended by the Queen, the royal family, and members of the European royal houses. Watched by thousands of people, the funeral procession, which started at Wellington Barracks, included representatives of all three British Armed Services, and military contingents from Burma, India, the United States (represented by 70 sailors of the US Navy and 50 US Marines[171]), France (represented by the French Navy) and Canada. His coffin was drawn on a gun carriage by 118 Royal Navy ratings.[172][173] During the televised service, the Prince of Wales (later, King Charles III) read the lesson from Psalm 107.[172] In an address, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, highlighted his various achievements and his "lifelong devotion to the Royal Navy".[174] After the public ceremonies, which he had planned himself, Mountbatten was buried in Romsey Abbey.[175][176] As part of the funeral arrangements, his body had been embalmed by Desmond Henley.[177]

Aftermath

Two hours before the bomb detonated, Thomas McMahon had been arrested at a Garda checkpoint between Longford and Granard on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. He was tried for the assassinations in Ireland and convicted on 23 November 1979 based on forensic evidence supplied by James O'Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes.[178] He was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.[156][179]

On hearing of Mountbatten's death, the then Master of the Queen's Music, Malcolm Williamson, wrote the Lament in Memory of Lord Mountbatten of Burma for violin and string orchestra. The 11-minute work was given its first performance on 5 May 1980 by the Scottish Baroque Ensemble, conducted by Leonard Friedman.[180]

On his death his estate was valued for probate purposes at £2,196,494 (equivalent to £12,000,000 in 2021).[181]

Legacy

Mountbatten's faults, according to his biographer Philip Ziegler, like everything else about him, "were on the grandest scale. His vanity though child-like, was monstrous, his ambition unbridled ... He sought to rewrite history with cavalier indifference to the facts to magnify his own achievements."[182] However, Ziegler concludes that Mountbatten's virtues outweighed his defects:[182]

He was generous and loyal ... He was warm-hearted, predisposed to like everyone he met, quick-tempered but never bearing grudges ... His tolerance was extraordinary; his readiness to respect and listen to the views of others was remarkable throughout his life.

Ziegler argues he was truly a great man, although not profound or original.[182]

What he could do with superlative aplomb was to identify the object at which he was aiming, and force it through to its conclusion. A powerful, analytic mind of crystalline clarity, a superabundance of energy, great persuasive powers, endless resilience in the face of setback or disaster rendered him the most formidable of operators. He was infinitely resourceful, quick in his reactions, always ready to cut his losses and start again ... He was an executor of policy rather than an initiator; but whatever the policy, he espoused it with such energy and enthusiasm, made it so completely his own, that it became identified with him and, in the eyes of the outside world as well as his own, his creation.

Others were not so conflicted. Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, once told him, "You are so crooked, Dickie, that if you swallowed a nail, you would shit a corkscrew".[183]

Mountbatten supported the burgeoning nationalist movements which grew up in the shadow of Japanese occupation. His priority was to maintain practical, stable government, but driving him was an idealism in which he believed every people should be allowed to control their own destiny. Critics said he was too ready to overlook their faults, and especially their subordination to communist control. Ziegler says that in Malaya, where the main resistance to the Japanese came from Chinese who were under considerable communist influence, "Mountbatten proved to have been naïve in his assessment. ... He erred, however, not because he was 'soft on Communism' ... but from an over-readiness to assume the best of those with whom he had dealings." Furthermore, Ziegler argues, he was following a practical policy based on the assumption that it would take a long and bloody struggle to drive the Japanese out, and he needed the support of all the anti-Japanese elements, most of which were either nationalists or communists.[184]

Mountbatten took pride in enhancing intercultural understanding and in 1984, with his elder daughter as the patron, the Mountbatten Institute was developed to allow young adults the opportunity to enhance their intercultural appreciation and experience by spending time abroad.[185] The IET annually awards the Mountbatten Medal for an outstanding contribution, or contributions over a period, to the promotion of electronics or information technology and their application.[21]

Canada's capital city of Ottawa named Mountbatten Avenue in his memory.[186] The Mountbatten estate in Singapore and Mountbatten MRT station were named after him.[187]

Mountbatten's personal papers (containing approximately 250,000 papers and 50,000 photographs) are preserved in the University of Southampton Library.[188]

Awards and decorations

Ribbon Name Date awarded
  Knight of the Garter (KG) 1946[189]
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) 1955[190]
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) 1945[191]
Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) 1943
  Member of the Order of Merit (Military Division) (OM) 1965[192]
  Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India (GCSI) 1947[193][n 2]
  Knight Grand Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (GCIE) 1947[194][n 3]
  Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) 1937[195]
Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) 1922[196]
Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) 1920[197]
  Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) 1941[37]
  Knight of Justice of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (KStJ) 1940[198]
Commander of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (CStJ) 1929[199]
  British War Medal 1918
  Victory Medal 1918
  1939–45 Star 1945
  Atlantic Star 1945
  Africa Star 1945
  Burma Star 1945
  Italy Star 1945
  Defence Medal 1945
  War Medal 1939–1945 1945
  Naval General Service Medal
  King George V Coronation Medal 1911
  King George V Silver Jubilee Medal 1935
  King George VI Coronation Medal 1937
  Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1952
  Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal 1977
  Indian Independence Medal 1949
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic   (Kingdom of Spain) – 1922[200]
  Order of the Nile, Fourth Class   (Kingdom of Egypt) – 1922[200]
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown   (Romania) – 1924[200]
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania   (Romania) – 1937[200]
  War Cross   (Kingdom of Greece) – 1941[201]
  Chief Commander of the Legion of Merit   (United States) – 1943[202]
  Special Grand Cordon of the Order of the Cloud and Banner   (Republic of China) – 1945[203]
  Distinguished Service Medal   (United States) – 1945[204]
 
 
 
 Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal   (United States) – 1945
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Elephant   (Kingdom of Thailand) – 21 January 1946[205][206]
  Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of Nepal   (Kingdom of Nepal) – 10 May 1946[205][207]
  Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour   (France) – 3 June 1946[205][208]
  1939–1945 War Cross   (France) – 3 June 1946[208]
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of George I   (Kingdom of Greece) – 1946[209]
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion   (Kingdom of the Netherlands) – 1948[210]
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Aviz   (Portuguese Republic) – 1951[200]
  Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim   (Kingdom of Sweden) – 1952
  Grand Commander of the Order of Thiri Thudhamma   (Union of Burma) – 1956[202]
  Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog   (Kingdom of Denmark) – 1962[200]
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Seal of Solomon   (Ethiopian Empire) – 1965[200]
  Order of the Distinguished Rule of Izzuddin   (Maldives) – 1972[211]
  King Birendra Coronation Medal   (Kingdom of Nepal) – 24 February 1975

He was appointed personal aide-de-camp by Edward VIII, George VI[212] and Elizabeth II, and therefore bore the unusual distinction of being allowed to wear three royal cyphers on his epaulettes.[213][214]

Arms

Coat of arms of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
 
Notes
The arms of the Earl Mountbatten of Burma consist of:
Crest
Crests of Hesse modified and Battenberg.
Helm
Helms of Hesse modified and Battenberg.
Escutcheon
Within the Garter, Quarterly, 1st and 4th, Hesse with a bordure compony argent and gules; 2nd and 3rd, Battenberg; charged at the honour point with an inescutcheon of the British Royal arms with a label of three points argent, the centre point charged with a rose gules and each of the others with an ermine spot sable (Princess Alice, his grandmother).[215]
Supporters
Two Lions queue fourchée and crowned all or.
Motto
In honour bound
Orders
The Order of the Garter ribbon.
Honi soit qui mal y pense
(Shame be to him who thinks evil of it)

Notes

  1. ^ He was born and known until 1917 as Prince Louis of Battenberg, then styled until 1946 Lord Louis Mountbatten, and then styled The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma until 1947.
  2. ^ As Viceroy and Governor-General of India, who was the ex officio Grand Master of the order.
  3. ^ As Viceroy and Governor-General of India, who was the ex officio Grand Master of the order.

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
  2. ^ Queen Victoria's Journals, Tuesday 17th July 1900: "I held him...and named him Albert Victor Nicholas Louis Francis"
  3. ^ "Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma". British Museum. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  4. ^ Zuckerman (1981), pp. 355–364
  5. ^ a b c Montgomery-Massingberd (1973), pp. 303–304
  6. ^ a b Queen Victoria (17 July 1900). "Journal Entry : Tuesday 17th July 1900". queenvictoriasjournals.org. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
  7. ^ a b c "Lord Louis Mountbatten". Life. 17 August 1942. p. 63. Retrieved 20 September 2012 – via Google Books.
  8. ^ Ziegler (2011).
  9. ^ a b Heathcote (2002), p. 183.
  10. ^ King & Wilson (2003), p. 49.
  11. ^ Hough (1984), p. 317
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Heathcote (2002), p. 184.
  13. ^ Ziegler (1985), p. 46
  14. ^ Ziegler (1985), pp. 47–49
  15. ^ Smith (2010), p. 66
  16. ^ Ziegler (1985), p. 49
  17. ^ "No. 32461". The London Gazette. 20 September 1921. p. 7384.
  18. ^ a b Ziegler (1985), p. 59
  19. ^ Ziegler (1985), p. 60 states that he actually joined HMS Repulse on 25 June 1921
  20. ^ Ziegler (1985), p. 73
  21. ^ a b . IET. Archived from the original on 27 October 2012. Retrieved 20 September 2012.
  22. ^ "No. 33378". The London Gazette. 24 April 1928. p. 2900.
  23. ^ "No. 33899". The London Gazette. 3 January 1933. p. 48.
  24. ^ "No. 34279". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 April 1936. p. 2785.
  25. ^ "No. 34296". The London Gazette (Supplement). 19 June 1936. p. 4012.
  26. ^ a b c d e f g Zuckerman (1981), pp. 354–366
  27. ^ "No. 34453". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 November 1937. p. 7049.
  28. ^ "No. 34414". The London Gazette. 2 July 1937. p. 4247.
  29. ^ a b c d Heathcote (2002), p. 185.
  30. ^ Mishra, Pankaj. "Exit Wounds". The New Yorker.
  31. ^ Lanham, Fritz (5 August 2007). "Indian Summer by Alex von Tunzelmann". Chron.
  32. ^ March (1966), p. 353
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  34. ^ Niemi (2006), p. 70.
  35. ^ "No. 34918". The London Gazette (Supplement). 9 August 1940. p. 4919.
  36. ^ "No. 35113". The London Gazette (Supplement). 18 March 1941. p. 1654.
  37. ^ a b "No. 35029". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1940. p. 25. DSO
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  40. ^ Otway (1990), pp. 65–66
  41. ^ "First World War". Nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
  42. ^ Lownie (2019), p. 131
  43. ^ Khanna (2015), p. 53
  44. ^ Villa (1989), pp. 240–241.
  45. ^ "Who Was Responsible For Dieppe?". CBC Archives. 9 September 1962. Retrieved 1 August 2007.
  46. ^ Thompson (2001), pp. 263–269.
  47. ^ "In pictures: D-Day inventions: The Flail". BBC News. Retrieved 20 September 2012.
  48. ^ "Lt-Col James Allason". Obituary. The Telegraph. London. 24 June 2011. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 20 September 2012.
  49. ^ Montefiore (2004), p. 501.
  50. ^ Heathcote (2002), p. 187
  51. ^ Park (1946), p. 2156, para 360.
  52. ^ Heathcote (2002), p. 188.
  53. ^ "Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900–1979)". BBC. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  54. ^ a b "No. 44059". The London Gazette. 21 July 1966. p. 8227.
  55. ^ "Japan is not invited to Lord Mountbatten's Funeral". The New York Times. 5 September 1979. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  56. ^ Talbot & Singh (2009), p. 40.
  57. ^ "No. 37916". The London Gazette. 25 March 1947. p. 1399.
  58. ^ Ziegler (1985), p. 359.
  59. ^ Jalal (1994), p. 250: "These instructions were to avoid partition and obtain an unitary government for British India and the Indian States and at the same time observe the pledges to the princes and the Muslims; to secure agreement to the Cabinet Mission plan without coercing any of the parties; somehow to keep the Indian army undivided, and to retain India within the Commonwealth. (Attlee to Mountbatten, 18 March 1947, ibid, 972–974)"
  60. ^ a b White (2012), p. 428.
  61. ^ Wolpert (2006), p. 140
  62. ^ a b Sardesai (2007), pp. 309–313.
  63. ^ Wolpert (2006), p. 141.
  64. ^ Greenberg (2005), p. 89
  65. ^ Ziegler (1985), p. 355.
  66. ^ a b Dipesh Navsaria (27 July 1996). "Indian Flag Proposals". Flags of the World. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  67. ^ Wolpert (2006), p. 139.
  68. ^ Ziegler (1985), p. 373.
  69. ^ "How Vallabhbhai Patel, V P Menon and Mountbatten unified India". 31 October 2017.
  70. ^ Guha (2008), p. 57.
  71. ^ Stoessinger (2010), p. 185.
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Further reading

  • Coll, Rebecca (2017). "Autobiography and history on screen: The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 37 (4): 665–682. doi:10.1080/01439685.2016.1187847. ISSN 0143-9685. S2CID 159708448.
  • Copland, Ian (1993). "Lord Mountbatten and the integration of the Indian states: A reappraisal". Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 21 (2): 385–408. doi:10.1080/03086539308582896. ISSN 0308-6534.
  • Grove, Eric; Rohan, Sally Rohan (1999). "The Limits of Opposition: Admiral Earl Mountbatten of Burma, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff". Contemporary British History. 13 (2): 98–116. doi:10.1080/13619469908581531. ISSN 1361-9462.
  • Hough, Richard (1980). Mountbatten: Hero of Our Time. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-77805-9.
  • Knatchbull, Timothy (2010). From a Clear Blue Sky. London: Arrow. ISBN 978-0-09-954358-9.
  • Leigh, David (1988). The Wilson Plot: The Intelligence Services and the Discrediting of a Prime Minister 1945–1976. London: Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-434-41340-9.
  • McLynn, Frank (2011). The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph, 1942–1945. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-17836-4.
  • Moore, R. J. (1981). "Mountbatten, India, and the Commonwealth". Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics. 19 (1): 5–43. doi:10.1080/14662048108447372. ISSN 0306-3631.
  • Murfett, Malcolm (1995). The First Sea Lords from Fisher to Mountbatten. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-94231-1.
  • Neillands, Robin (2005). The Dieppe Raid: the story of the disastrous 1942 expedition. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34781-7.
  • Nordenvall, Per (1998). Kungl. Serafimerorden 1748–1998 [The Royal Order of the Seraphim 1748–1998] (in Swedish). Stockholm: Kungl. Maj:ts orden. ISBN 978-91-630-6744-0.
  • Ritter, Jonathan Templin (2017). Stilwell and Mountbatten in Burma: Allies at War, 1943–1944. Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press. ISBN 978-1-57441-674-9.
  • Roberts, Andrew (2004). Eminent Churchillians. London: Phoenix. ISBN 978-1-85799-213-7.
  • Smith, Adrian (1991). "Command and Control in Postwar Britain Defence Decision-making in the United Kingdom, 1945-1984". Twentieth-Century British History. 2 (3): 291–327. doi:10.1093/tcbh/2.3.291.
  •  ———  (August 2006). "Mountbatten goes to the movies: Promoting the heroic myth through cinema". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 26 (3): 395–416. doi:10.1080/01439680600799421. S2CID 191491309.
  • Terraine, John (1968). The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 978-0-09-088810-8.
  • Villa, Brian Loring; Henshaw, Peter J. (June 1998). "The Dieppe Raid Debate". Canadian Historical Review. 79 (2): 304–315. ISSN 0008-3755.
  • Wheen, Francis (2001). Tom Driberg: The Soul of Indiscretion. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-1-84115-575-3.
  • Ankit, Rakesh (2021). "Mountbatten and India, 1964-79: after Nehru". Contemporary British History. 35 (4): 569–596. doi:10.1080/13619462.2021.1944113. ISSN 1361-9462. S2CID 237793636.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
  • Tribute & Memorial Website to Louis, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
  • 70th Anniversary of Indian Independence – Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy – UK Parliament Living Heritage
  • Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl Mountbatten of Burma
  • Papers of Louis, Earl Mountbatten of Burma
  • Newspaper clippings about Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
Government offices
Preceded by Viceroy of India
1947 		Partition of India
New title Governor General of India
1947–1948 		Succeeded by
Honorary titles
Preceded by Governor of the Isle of Wight
1965–1974 		Vacant
Title next held by
Lord Mottistone
New title Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight
1974–1979 		Succeeded by
Military offices
Preceded by Fourth Sea Lord
1950–1952 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet
1952–1954 		Succeeded by
Preceded by First Sea Lord
1955–1959 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chief of the Defence Staff
1959–1965 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Rustu Erdelhun
 Chairman of the NATO Military Committee
1960–1961 		Succeeded by
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation Earl Mountbatten of Burma
1947–1979 		Succeeded byas Countess
Viscount Mountbatten of Burma
1946–1979

April 01, 2023
louis, mountbatten, earl, mountbatten, burma, louis, mountbatten, redirects, here, father, marquess, milford, haven, prince, louis, battenberg, albert, victor, nicholas, louis, francis, mountbatten, earl, mountbatten, burma, june, 1900, august, 1979, british, . Louis Mountbatten redirects here For his father the 1st Marquess of Milford Haven see Prince Louis of Battenberg Albert Victor Nicholas Louis Francis Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma 1 2 n 1 25 June 1900 27 August 1979 was a British naval officer colonial administrator and close relative of the British royal family Mountbatten who was of German descent was born in the United Kingdom to the prominent Battenberg family and was a maternal uncle of Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh and a second cousin of King George VI He joined the Royal Navy during the First World War and was appointed Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command in the Second World War He later served as the last Viceroy of British India and briefly as the first Governor General of the Dominion of India The Right HonourableThe Earl Mountbatten of BurmaKG GCB OM GCSI GCIE GCVO DSO PC ADC FRSPortrait by Allan Warren 1976Chief of the Defence StaffIn office 13 July 1959 15 July 1965Prime MinisterHarold MacmillanSir Alec Douglas HomeHarold WilsonPreceded bySir William DicksonSucceeded bySir Richard HullFirst Sea LordIn office 18 April 1955 19 October 1959Prime MinisterSir Anthony EdenHarold MacmillanPreceded bySir Rhoderick McGrigorSucceeded bySir Charles LambeGovernor General of IndiaIn office 15 August 1947 21 June 1948MonarchGeorge VIPrime MinisterJawaharlal NehruPreceded byHimself As Viceroy and Governor General Succeeded byC RajagopalachariViceroy of British IndiaIn office 21 February 1947 15 August 1947MonarchGeorge VIPrime MinisterClement AttleePreceded byThe Viscount WavellSucceeded byHimself as Governor General of India Muhammad Ali Jinnah as Governor General of Pakistan Member of the House of LordsLord TemporalHereditary peerage 13 June 1946 27 August 1979Preceded byPeerage establishedSucceeded byThe 2nd Countess Mountbatten of BurmaPersonal detailsBornPrince Louis of Battenberg 1900 06 25 25 June 1900Frogmore House Windsor Berkshire EnglandDied27 August 1979 1979 08 27 aged 79 Mullaghmore County Sligo IrelandManner of deathAssassinationResting placeRomsey AbbeySpouseEdwina Ashley m 1922 died 1960 wbr ChildrenPatricia Knatchbull 2nd Countess Mountbatten of BurmaLady Pamela HicksParentsLouis Mountbatten 1st Marquess of Milford HavenPrincess Victoria of Hesse and by RhineAlma materChrist s College CambridgeOccupationNaval officerstatesmannoblemanMilitary serviceAllegianceUnited KingdomBranch serviceRoyal NavyYears of service1913 1965RankAdmiral of the FleetCommandsSee list Chief of the Defence Staff 1959 1965 First Sea Lord 1955 1959 Mediterranean Fleet 1952 1954 Fourth Sea Lord 1950 1952 Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command 1943 1946 Chief of Combined Operations 1941 1943 HMS Illustrious 1941 HMS Kelly 1939 1941 HMS Wishart 1934 1936 HMS Daring 1934 Battles warsFirst World WarSecond World WarAwardsSee listMountbatten attended the Royal Naval College Osborne before entering the Royal Navy in 1916 He saw action during the closing phase of the First World War and after the war briefly attended Christ s College Cambridge During the interwar period Mountbatten continued to pursue his naval career specialising in naval communications Following the outbreak of the Second World War Mountbatten commanded the destroyer HMS Kelly and the 5th Destroyer Flotilla He saw considerable action in Norway in the English Channel and in the Mediterranean In August 1941 he received command of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious He was appointed chief of Combined Operations and a member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in early 1942 and organised the raids on St Nazaire and Dieppe In August 1943 Mountbatten became Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command and oversaw the recapture of Burma and Singapore from the Japanese by the end of 1945 For his service during the war Mountbatten was created viscount in 1946 and earl the following year In March 1947 Mountbatten was appointed Viceroy of India and oversaw the Partition of India into India and Pakistan He then served as the first Governor General of India until June 1948 In 1952 Mountbatten was appointed commander in chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet and NATO Commander Allied Forces Mediterranean From 1955 to 1959 he was First Sea Lord a position that had been held by his father Prince Louis of Battenberg some forty years earlier Thereafter he served as chief of the Defence Staff until 1965 making him the longest serving professional head of the British Armed Forces to date During this period Mountbatten also served as chairman of the NATO Military Committee for a year In August 1979 Mountbatten was assassinated by a bomb planted aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore County Sligo Ireland by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army He received a ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey and was buried in Romsey Abbey in Hampshire Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2 1 Early career 2 2 Second World War 2 3 Last Viceroy of India 2 4 Career after India 2 5 Alleged plots against Harold Wilson 3 Personal life 3 1 Marriage 3 2 Sexuality and child abuse allegations 3 3 Daughter as heir 3 4 Leisure interests 3 5 Mentorship of King Charles III 4 Television appearances 5 Assassination 5 1 Funeral 5 2 Aftermath 6 Legacy 7 Awards and decorations 8 Arms 9 Notes 10 References 10 1 Footnotes 10 2 Works cited 11 Further reading 12 External linksEarly life EditMountbatten then named Prince Louis of Battenberg was born on 25 June 1900 at Frogmore House in the Home Park Windsor Berkshire 3 He was the youngest child and the second son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine 4 Mountbatten s maternal grandparents were Louis IV Grand Duke of Hesse and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom who was a daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha His paternal grandparents were Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julia Princess of Battenberg 5 Mountbatten s paternal grandparents marriage was morganatic because his grandmother was not of royal lineage as a result he and his father were styled Serene Highness rather than Grand Ducal Highness were not eligible to be titled Princes of Hesse and were given the less exalted Battenberg title Mountbatten s elder siblings were Princess Alice of Battenberg later Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark mother of Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh Princess Louise of Battenberg later Queen Louise of Sweden and Prince George of Battenberg later George Mountbatten 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven 5 Mountbatten was baptised in the large drawing room of Frogmore House on 17 July 1900 by the Dean of Windsor Philip Eliot His godparents were Queen Victoria Nicholas II of Russia represented by the child s father and Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg represented by Lord Edward Clinton 6 He wore the original 1841 royal christening gown at the ceremony 6 Mountbatten s nickname among family and friends was Dickie however Richard was not among his given names This was because his great grandmother Queen Victoria had suggested the nickname of Nicky but to avoid confusion with the many Nickys of the Russian Imperial Family Nicky was particularly used to refer to Nicholas II the last Tsar Nicky was changed to Dickie 7 Mountbatten was educated at home for the first 10 years of his life he was then sent to Lockers Park School in Hertfordshire 8 and on to the Royal Naval College Osborne in May 1913 9 Mountbatten s mother s younger sister was Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna In childhood he visited the Imperial Court of Russia at St Petersburg and became intimate with the Russian Imperial Family harbouring romantic feelings towards his maternal first cousin Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna whose photograph he kept at his bedside for the rest of his life 10 From 1914 to 1918 Britain and its allies were at war with the Central Powers led by the German Empire To appease British nationalist sentiment King George V issued a royal proclamation changing the name of the British royal house from the German House of Saxe Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor The king s British relatives followed suit with Mountbatten s father dropping his German titles and name and adopting the surname Mountbatten an anglicization of Battenberg His father was subsequently created Marquess of Milford Haven 11 Career EditEarly career Edit Mountbatten was posted as midshipman to the battlecruiser HMS Lion in July 1916 and after seeing action in August 1916 transferred to the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth during the closing phases of the First World War 9 In June 1917 when the royal family stopped using their German names and titles and adopted the more British sounding Windsor Mountbatten acquired the courtesy title appropriate to a younger son of a marquess becoming known as Lord Louis Mountbatten Lord Louis for short until he was created a peer in his own right in 1946 12 He paid a visit of ten days to the Western Front in July 1918 13 Portrait by Philip de Laszlo 1925 While still an acting sub lieutenant Mountbatten was appointed first lieutenant second in command of the P class sloop HMS P 31 on 13 October 1918 and was confirmed as a substantive sub lieutenant on 15 January 1919 HMS P 31 took part in the Peace River Pageant on 4 April 1919 Mountbatten attended Christ s College Cambridge for two terms starting in October 1919 where he studied English literature including John Milton and Lord Byron in a programme designed to augment the education of junior officers which had been curtailed by the war 14 15 He was elected for a term to the Standing Committee of the Cambridge Union Society and was suspected of sympathy for the Labour Party then emerging as a potential party of government for the first time 16 Prince Edward with his staff all wearing kimono yukata during the Pacific visit to Japan in 1922 Mountbatten standing first from left The Rising Sun Flag in the background Mountbatten was posted to the battlecruiser HMS Renown in March 1920 and accompanied Edward Prince of Wales on a royal tour of Australia in her 12 He was promoted lieutenant on 15 April 1920 17 HMS Renown returned to Portsmouth on 11 October 1920 18 Early in 1921 Royal Navy personnel were used for civil defence duties as serious industrial unrest seemed imminent Mountbatten had to command a platoon of stokers many of whom had never handled a rifle before in northern England 18 He transferred to the battlecruiser HMS Repulse in March 1921 and accompanied the Prince of Wales on a Royal tour of India and Japan 12 19 Edward and Mountbatten formed a close friendship during the trip 12 Mountbatten survived the deep defence cuts known as the Geddes Axe Fifty two percent of the officers of his year had had to leave the Royal Navy by the end of 1923 although he was highly regarded by his superiors it was rumoured that wealthy and well connected officers were more likely to be retained 20 Mountbatten was posted to the battleship HMS Revenge in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1923 12 Pursuing his interests in technological development and gadgetry Mountbatten joined the Portsmouth Signals School in August 1924 and then went on briefly to study electronics at the Royal Naval College Greenwich 12 Mountbatten became a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers IEE now the Institution of Engineering and Technology IET 21 He was posted to the battleship HMS Centurion in the Reserve Fleet in 1926 and became Assistant Fleet Wireless and Signals Officer of the Mediterranean Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Roger Keyes in January 1927 12 Promoted lieutenant commander on 15 April 1928 22 Mountbatten returned to the Signals School in July 1929 as Senior Wireless Instructor 12 He was appointed Fleet Wireless Officer to the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1931 and having been promoted commander on 31 December 1932 23 was posted to the battleship HMS Resolution 12 In 1934 Mountbatten was appointed to his first command the destroyer HMS Daring 12 His ship was a new destroyer which he was to sail to Singapore and exchange for an older ship HMS Wishart 12 He successfully brought Wishart back to port in Malta and then attended the funeral of King George V in January 1936 24 Mountbatten was appointed a personal naval aide de camp to King Edward VIII on 23 June 1936 25 and having joined the Naval Air Division of the Admiralty in July 1936 26 he attended the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937 27 Mountbatten was promoted captain on 30 June 1937 28 and was then given command of the destroyer HMS Kelly in June 1939 29 Within the Admiralty Mountbatten was called The Master of Disaster for his penchant of getting into messes 30 31 Second World War Edit Mountbatten inspecting sailors before the Bruneval Raid February 1942 When war broke out in September 1939 Mountbatten became Captain D commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla aboard HMS Kelly which became famous for its exploits 26 In late 1939 he brought the Duke of Windsor back from exile in France and in early May 1940 Mountbatten led a British convoy in through the fog to evacuate the Allied forces participating in the Namsos Campaign during the Norwegian Campaign 29 On the night of 9 10 May 1940 Kelly was torpedoed amidships by a German E boat S 31 off the Dutch coast and Mountbatten thereafter commanded the 5th Destroyer Flotilla from the destroyer HMS Javelin 29 On 29 November 1940 the 5th Flotilla engaged three German destroyers off Lizard Point Cornwall Mountbatten turned to port to match a German course change This was a rather disastrous move as the directors swung off and lost target 32 and it resulted in Javelin being struck by two torpedoes He rejoined Kelly in December 1940 by which time the torpedo damage had been repaired 29 Kelly was sunk by German dive bombers on 23 May 1941 during the Battle of Crete 33 the incident serving as the basis for Noel Coward s film In Which We Serve 34 Coward was a personal friend of Mountbatten and copied some of his speeches into the film 33 Mountbatten was mentioned in despatches on 9 August 1940 35 and 21 March 1941 36 and awarded the Distinguished Service Order in January 1941 37 Walter Short Mountbatten and Husband E Kimmel in Hawaii 1941 In August 1941 Mountbatten was appointed captain of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious which lay in Norfolk Virginia for repairs following action at Malta in January 33 During this period of relative inactivity he paid a flying visit to Pearl Harbor three months before the Japanese attack on it Mountbatten appalled at the US naval base s lack of preparedness drawing on Japan s history of launching wars with surprise attacks as well as the successful British surprise attack at the Battle of Taranto which had effectively knocked Italy s fleet out of the war and the sheer effectiveness of aircraft against warships accurately predicted that the US would enter the war after a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor 33 38 Clockwise from lower right Franklin D Roosevelt Winston Churchill Sir Hastings Pug Ismay Mountbatten January 1943 at the Casablanca conference Mountbatten was a favourite of Winston Churchill 39 On 27 October 1941 Mountbatten replaced Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations Headquarters and was promoted to commodore 33 His duties in this role included inventing new technical aids to assist with opposed landings 26 Noteworthy technical achievements of Mountbatten and his staff include the construction of PLUTO an underwater oil pipeline to Normandy an artificial Mulberry harbour constructed of concrete caissons and sunken ships and the development of tank landing ships 26 Another project Mountbatten proposed to Churchill was Project Habakkuk It was to be an unsinkable 600 metre aircraft carrier made from reinforced ice Pykrete Habakkuk was never carried out due to its enormous cost 26 Mountbatten in 1943 As commander of Combined Operations Mountbatten and his staff planned the highly successful Bruneval raid which gained important information and captured part of a German Wurzburg radar installation and one of the machine s technicians on 27 February 1942 It was Mountbatten who recognised that surprise and speed were essential to capture the radar and saw that an airborne assault was the only viable method 40 On 18 March 1942 he was promoted to the acting rank of vice admiral and given the honorary ranks of lieutenant general 41 and air marshal to have the authority to carry out his duties in Combined Operations and despite the misgivings of General Sir Alan Brooke the Chief of the Imperial General Staff 42 Mountbatten was placed in the Chiefs of Staff Committee 43 He was in large part responsible for the planning and organisation of the St Nazaire Raid on 28 March which put out of action one of the most heavily defended docks in Nazi occupied France until well after the war s end the ramifications of which contributed to allied supremacy in the Battle of the Atlantic After these two successes came the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942 He was central in the planning and promotion of the raid on the port of Dieppe The raid was a marked failure with casualties of almost 60 the great majority of them Canadians 33 Following the Dieppe Raid Mountbatten became a controversial figure in Canada with the Royal Canadian Legion distancing itself from him during his visits there during his later career 44 His relations with Canadian veterans who blamed him for the losses remained frosty after the war 45 Mountbatten during his tour of the Arakan Front in Burma in February 1944 Mountbatten claimed that the lessons learned from the Dieppe Raid were necessary for planning the Normandy invasion on D Day nearly two years later However military historians such as Major General Julian Thompson a former member of the Royal Marines have written that these lessons should not have needed a debacle such as Dieppe to be recognised 46 Nevertheless as a direct result of the failings of the Dieppe Raid the British made several innovations most notably Hobart s Funnies specialised armoured vehicles which in the course of the Normandy Landings undoubtedly saved many lives on those three beachheads upon which Commonwealth soldiers were landing Gold Beach Juno Beach and Sword Beach 47 In August 1943 Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command SEAC with promotion to acting full admiral 33 His less practical ideas were sidelined by an experienced planning staff led by Lieutenant Colonel James Allason though some such as a proposal to launch an amphibious assault near Rangoon got as far as Churchill before being quashed 48 Mountbatten s address on the steps of Singapore s Municipal Building after the surrender British interpreter Hugh Lunghi recounted an embarrassing episode during the Potsdam Conference when Mountbatten desiring to receive an invitation to visit the Soviet Union repeatedly attempted to impress Joseph Stalin with his former connections to the Russian imperial family The attempt fell predictably flat with Stalin dryly inquiring whether it was some time ago that he had been there Says Lunghi The meeting was embarrassing because Stalin was so unimpressed He offered no invitation Mountbatten left with his tail between his legs 49 During his time as Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Theatre his command oversaw the recapture of Burma from the Japanese by General Sir William Slim 50 A personal high point was the receipt of the Japanese surrender in Singapore when British troops returned to the island to receive the formal surrender of Japanese forces in the region led by General Itagaki Seishiro on 12 September 1945 codenamed Operation Tiderace 51 South East Asia Command was disbanded in May 1946 and Mountbatten returned home with the substantive rank of rear admiral 52 That year he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma of Romsey in the County of Southampton as a victory title for war service He was then in 1947 further created Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Baron Romsey of Romsey in the County of Southampton 53 54 Following the war Mountbatten was known to have largely shunned the Japanese for the rest of his life out of respect for his men killed during the war and as per his will Japan was not invited to send diplomatic representatives to his funeral in 1979 though he did meet Emperor Hirohito during his state visit to Britain in 1971 reportedly at the urging of the Queen 55 Last Viceroy of India Edit Main article Partition of India Mountbatten s experience in the region and in particular his perceived Labour sympathies at that time led to Clement Attlee advising King George VI to appoint him Viceroy of India on 20 February 1947 56 57 charged with overseeing the transition of British India to independence no later than 30 June 1948 Mountbatten s instructions were to avoid partition and preserve a united India as a result of the transfer of power but authorised him to adapt to a changing situation in order to get Britain out promptly with minimal reputational damage 58 59 Mountbatten arrived in India on 22 March 1947 by air from London In the evening he was taken to his residence and two days later he took the Viceregal Oath His arrival saw large scale communal riots in Delhi Bombay and Rawalpindi Mountbatten concluded that the situation was too volatile to wait even a year before granting independence to India Although his advisers favoured a gradual transfer of independence Mountbatten decided the only way forward was a quick and orderly transfer of power before 1947 was out In his view any longer would mean civil war 60 Mountbatten also hurried so he could return to his senior technical Navy courses 61 62 Lord and Lady Mountbatten at Mussoorie with Congress leader Sardar Patel his daughter Manibehn Patel and Nehru in the background Lord and Lady Mountbatten with Mahatma Gandhi 1947 Mountbatten was fond of Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru and his liberal outlook for the country He felt differently about the Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah but was aware of his power stating If it could be said that any single man held the future of India in the palm of his hand in 1947 that man was Mohammad Ali Jinnah 62 During his meeting with Jinnah on 5 April 1947 63 Mountbatten tried to persuade him of a united India citing the difficult task of dividing the mixed states of Punjab and Bengal but the Muslim leader was unyielding in his goal of establishing a separate Muslim state called Pakistan 64 Given the British government s recommendations to grant independence quickly Mountbatten concluded that a united India was an unachievable goal and resigned himself to a plan for partition creating the independent nations of India and Pakistan 26 Mountbatten set a date for the transfer of power from the British to the Indians arguing that a fixed timeline would convince Indians of his and the British government s sincerity in working towards a swift and efficient independence excluding all possibilities of stalling the process 65 Mountbatten s proposed flag for India consisting of the flag of the Indian National Congress defaced with a Union Jack in the canton It was rejected by Nehru as he felt that the more extremist members of Congress would see the inclusion of the Union Jack on an Indian flag as pandering to the British 66 Mountbatten s proposed flag for Pakistan consisting of the flag of the Muslim League defaced with a Union Jack in the canton It was rejected by Jinnah as he felt that a flag featuring a Christian Cross alongside the Islamic Crescent would be unacceptable to the Muslims of Pakistan 66 Among the Indian leaders Mahatma Gandhi emphatically insisted on maintaining a united India and for a while successfully rallied people to this goal During his meeting with Mountbatten Gandhi asked Mountbatten to invite Jinnah to form a new central government but Mountbatten never uttered a word of Gandhi s ideas to Jinnah 67 When Mountbatten s timeline offered the prospect of attaining independence soon sentiments took a different turn Given Mountbatten s determination Nehru and Patel s inability to deal with the Muslim League and lastly Jinnah s obstinacy all Indian party leaders except Gandhi acquiesced to Jinnah s plan to divide India 68 which in turn eased Mountbatten s task Mountbatten also developed a strong relationship with the Indian princes who ruled those portions of India not directly under British rule His intervention was decisive in persuading the vast majority of them to see advantages in opting to join the Indian Union 69 On one hand the integration of the princely states can be viewed as one of the positive aspects of his legacy 70 But on the other the refusal of Hyderabad Jammu and Kashmir and Junagadh to join one of the dominions led to future wars between Pakistan and India 71 Mountbatten brought forward the date of the partition from June 1948 to 15 August 1947 72 The uncertainty of the borders caused Muslims and Hindus to move into the direction where they felt they would get the majority Hindus and Muslims were thoroughly terrified and the Muslim movement from the East was balanced by the similar movement of Hindus from the West 73 A boundary committee chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe was charged with drawing boundaries for the new nations With a mandate to leave as many Hindus and Sikhs in India and as many Muslims in Pakistan as possible Radcliffe came up with a map that split the two countries along the Punjab and Bengal borders This left 14 million people on the wrong side of the border and very many of them fled to safety on the other side when the new lines were announced 60 74 Mountbatten with Jawaharlal Nehru the first Prime Minister of sovereign India in Government House Lady Mountbatten is standing to their left When India and Pakistan attained independence at midnight of 14 15 August 1947 Mountbatten was alone in his study at the Viceroy s house saying to himself just before the clock struck midnight that for still a few minutes he was the most powerful man on Earth At 11 58 PM as a last act of showmanship he created Joan Falkiner the Australian wife of the Nawab of Palanpur a highness an act that was apparently one of his favourite duties that was annulled at the stroke of midnight 75 Mountbatten remained in New Delhi for 10 months serving as the first governor general of an independent India until June 1948 76 On Mountbatten s advice India took the issue of Kashmir to the newly formed United Nations in January 1948 This issue would become a lasting thorn in his legacy and one that is not resolved to this day 77 Accounts differ on the future which Mountbatten desired for Kashmir Pakistani accounts suggest that Mountbatten favoured the accession of Kashmir to India citing his close relationship to Nehru Mountbatten s own account says that he simply wanted the maharaja Hari Singh to make up his mind The viceroy made several attempts to mediate between the Congress leaders Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Hari Singh on issues relating to the accession of Kashmir though he was largely unsuccessful in resolving the conflict 78 After the tribal invasion of Kashmir it was on his suggestion that India moved to secure the accession of Kashmir from Hari Singh before sending in military forces for his defence 79 Lord and Lady Mountbatten with Muhammad Ali JinnahNotwithstanding the self promotion of his own part in Indian independence notably in the television series The Life and Times of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma produced by his son in law Lord Brabourne and Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins of which he was the main quoted source his record is seen as very mixed One common view is that he hastened the process of independence unduly and recklessly foreseeing vast disruption and loss of life and not wanting this to occur on his watch but thereby actually helping it to occur albeit in an indirect manner especially in Punjab and Bengal 80 John Kenneth Galbraith the Canadian American Harvard University economist who advised governments of India during the 1950s and was an intimate of Nehru who served as the American ambassador from 1961 to 1963 was a particularly harsh critic of Mountbatten in this regard 81 However another view is that the British were forced to expedite the partition process to avoid involvement in a potential civil war with law and order having already broken down and Britain with limited resources after the Second World War 82 83 According to historian Lawrence James Mountbatten was left with no other option but to cut and run with the alternative being involvement in a potential civil war that would be difficult to get out of 82 The creation of Pakistan was never emotionally accepted by many British leaders among them Mountbatten 84 Mountbatten clearly expressed his lack of support and faith in the Muslim League s idea of Pakistan 85 Jinnah refused Mountbatten s offer to serve as Governor General of Pakistan 86 When Mountbatten was asked by Collins and Lapierre if he would have sabotaged the creation of Pakistan had he known that Jinnah was dying of tuberculosis he replied Most probably 87 After his tenure as Governor General concluded Mountbatten continued to enjoy close relations with Nehru and the post Independence Indian leadership and was welcomed as a former governor general of India on subsequent visits to the country including during an official trip in March 1956 The Pakistani government by contrast never forgave Mountbatten for his perceived hostile attitude towards Pakistan and deemed him Persona non grata barring him from transiting their airspace during the same visit 88 Career after India Edit Mountbatten inspects Malayan troops in Kensington Gardens in 1946 After India Mountbatten served as commander of the 1st Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean Fleet and having been granted the substantive rank of vice admiral on 22 June 1949 89 he became Second in Command of the Mediterranean Fleet in April 1950 76 He became Fourth Sea Lord at the Admiralty in June 1950 He then returned to the Mediterranean to serve as Commander in Chief Mediterranean Fleet and NATO Commander Allied Forces Mediterranean from June 1952 76 He was promoted to the substantive rank of full admiral on 27 February 1953 90 In March 1953 he was appointed Personal Aide de Camp to the Queen 91 Mountbatten arrives on board HMS Glasgow at Malta to assume command of the Mediterranean Fleet 16 May 1952 Mountbatten served his final posting at the Admiralty as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from April 1955 to July 1959 the position which his father had held some forty years before This was the first time in Royal Naval history that a father and son had both attained such high office 92 He was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 22 October 1956 93 In the Suez Crisis of 1956 Mountbatten strongly advised his old friend Prime Minister Anthony Eden against the Conservative government s plans to seize the Suez canal in conjunction with France and Israel He argued that such a move would destabilize the Middle East undermine the authority of the United Nations divide the Commonwealth and diminish Britain s global standing His advice was not taken Eden insisted that Mountbatten not resign Instead he worked hard to prepare the Royal Navy for war with characteristic professionalism and thoroughness 94 95 96 Despite his military rank Mountbatten was ignorant as to the physics involved in a nuclear explosion and had to be reassured that the fission reactions from the Bikini Atoll tests would not spread through the oceans and blow up the planet 97 As Mountbatten became more familiar with this new form of weaponry he increasingly grew opposed to its use in combat yet at the same time he realised the potential for nuclear energy especially with regard to submarines Mountbatten expressed his feelings towards the use of nuclear weapons in combat in his article A Military Commander Surveys The Nuclear Arms Race which was published shortly after his death in International Security in the Winter of 1979 1980 98 After leaving the Admiralty Mountbatten took the position of Chief of the Defence Staff 76 He served in this post for six years during which he was able to consolidate the three service departments of the military branch into a single Ministry of Defence 99 Ian Jacob co author of the 1963 Report on the Central Organisation of Defence that served as the basis of these reforms described Mountbatten as universally mistrusted in spite of his great qualities 100 On their election in October 1964 the Wilson ministry had to decide whether to renew his appointment the following July The Defence Secretary Denis Healey interviewed the forty most senior officials in the Ministry of Defence only one Sir Kenneth Strong a personal friend of Mountbatten recommended his reappointment 100 When I told Dickie of my decision not to reappoint him recalls Healey he slapped his thigh and roared with delight but his eyes told a different story 100 Mountbatten was appointed colonel of the Life Guards and Gold Stick in Waiting on 29 January 1965 101 and Life Colonel Commandant of the Royal Marines the same year 102 He was Governor of the Isle of Wight from 20 July 1965 103 and then the first Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight from 1 April 1974 104 Mountbatten with John F Kennedy in the Oval Office Washington D C 11 April 1961 Louis Mountbatten during a 1967 visit to Israel Mountbatten was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 26 and had received an honorary doctorate from Heriot Watt University in 1968 105 In 1969 Mountbatten tried unsuccessfully to persuade his cousin the Spanish pretender Infante Juan Count of Barcelona to ease the eventual accession of his son Juan Carlos to the Spanish throne by signing a declaration of abdication while in exile 106 The next year Mountbatten attended an official White House dinner during which he took the opportunity to have a 20 minute conversation with Richard Nixon and Secretary of State William P Rogers about which he later wrote I was able to talk to the President a bit about both Tino Constantine II of Greece and Juanito Juan Carlos of Spain to try and put over their respective points of view about Greece and Spain and how I felt the US could help them 106 In January 1971 Nixon hosted Juan Carlos and his wife Sofia sister of the exiled King Constantine during a visit to Washington and later that year The Washington Post published an article alleging that Nixon s administration was seeking to persuade Franco to retire in favour of the young Bourbon prince 106 From 1967 until 1978 Mountbatten was president of the United World Colleges Organisation then represented by a single college that of Atlantic College in South Wales Mountbatten supported the United World Colleges and encouraged heads of state politicians and personalities throughout the world to share his interest Under his presidency and personal involvement the United World College of South East Asia was established in Singapore in 1971 followed by the United World College of the Pacific in Victoria British Columbia in 1974 In 1978 Mountbatten passed the presidency of the college to his great nephew the Prince of Wales 107 Mountbatten also helped to launch the International Baccalaureate in 1971 he presented the first IB diplomas in the Greek Theatre of the International School of Geneva Switzerland 108 109 110 In 1975 Mountbatten finally visited the Soviet Union leading the delegation from UK as personal representative of Queen Elizabeth II at the celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary of Victory Day in Second World War in Moscow 111 Alleged plots against Harold Wilson Edit Main article Harold Wilson conspiracy theories The 1968 plot Peter Wright in his 1987 book Spycatcher claimed that in May 1968 Mountbatten attended a private meeting with press baron Cecil King and the government s Chief Scientific Adviser Solly Zuckerman Wright alleged that up to thirty MI5 officers had joined a secret campaign to undermine the crisis stricken Labour government of Harold Wilson and that King was an MI5 agent In the meeting King allegedly urged Mountbatten to become the leader of a government of national salvation Solly Zuckerman pointed out that it was rank treachery and the idea came to nothing because of Mountbatten s reluctance to act 112 In contrast Andrew Lownie has suggested that it took the intervention of the Queen to dissuade Mountbatten from plotting against Wilson 113 In 2006 the BBC documentary The Plot Against Harold Wilson alleged that there had been another plot involving Mountbatten to oust Wilson during his second term in office 1974 1976 The period was characterised by high inflation increasing unemployment and widespread industrial unrest The alleged plot revolved around right wing former military figures who were supposedly building private armies to counter the perceived threat from trade unions and the Soviet Union They believed that the Labour Party was unable and unwilling to counter these developments and that Wilson was either a Soviet agent or at the very least a Communist sympathiser claims Wilson strongly denied The documentary makers alleged that a coup was planned to overthrow Wilson and replace him with Mountbatten using the private armies and sympathisers in the military and MI5 114 The first official history of MI5 The Defence of the Realm 2009 implied that there was a plot against Wilson and that MI5 did have a file on him Yet it also made clear that the plot was in no way official and that any activity centred on a small group of discontented officers This much had already been confirmed by former cabinet secretary Lord Hunt who concluded in a secret inquiry conducted in 1996 that there is absolutely no doubt at all that a few a very few malcontents in MI5 a lot of them like Peter Wright who were right wing malicious and had serious personal grudges gave vent to these and spread damaging malicious stories about that Labour government 115 Personal life EditMarriage Edit Louis and Edwina Mountbatten Mountbatten was married on 18 July 1922 to Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley daughter of Wilfred William Ashley later 1st Baron Mount Temple himself a grandson of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury She was the favourite granddaughter of the Edwardian magnate Sir Ernest Cassel and the principal heir to his fortune The couple spent heavily on households luxuries and entertainment 12 There followed a honeymoon tour of European royal courts and America which included a visit to Niagara Falls because all honeymooners went there 7 During their honeymoon in California the newlyweds starred in a silent home movie by Charlie Chaplin called Nice And Friendly which was not shown in cinemas 116 117 Mountbatten admitted Edwina and I spent all our married lives getting into other people s beds 118 He maintained an affair for several years with Yola Letellier 119 the wife of Henri Letellier publisher of Le Journal and mayor of Deauville 1925 28 120 Yola Letellier s life story was the inspiration for Colette s novel Gigi 119 After Edwina died in 1960 Mountbatten was involved in relationships with young women according to his daughter Patricia his secretary John Barratt his valet Bill Evans and William Stadiem an employee of Madame Claude 121 He had a long running affair with American actress Shirley MacLaine whom he met in the 1960s 122 Sexuality and child abuse allegations Edit Ron Perks Mountbatten s driver in Malta in 1948 alleged that he used to visit the Red House an upmarket gay brothel in Rabat used by naval officers 123 Andrew Lownie a fellow of the Royal Historical Society wrote that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI maintained files regarding Mountbatten s alleged homosexuality 124 Lownie also interviewed several young men who claimed to have been in a relationship with Mountbatten John Barratt Mountbatten s personal and private secretary for 20 years 125 has said Mountbatten was not a homosexual and that it would have been impossible for such a fact to have been hidden from him 121 In 2019 files became public showing that the FBI knew in the 1940s of allegations that Mountbatten was homosexual and a paedophile 126 The FBI file on Mountbatten begun after he took on the role of Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia in 1944 describes Mountbatten and his wife Edwina as persons of extremely low morals and contains a claim by American author Elizabeth Baroness Decies that Mountbatten was known to be a homosexual and had a perversion for young boys 124 127 Norman Nield Mountbatten s driver from 1942 to 1943 told the tabloid New Zealand Truth that he transported young boys aged 8 to 12 who had been procured for the Admiral to Mountbatten s official residence and was paid to keep quiet Robin Bryans had also claimed to the Irish magazine Now that Mountbatten and Anthony Blunt along with others were part of a ring that engaged in homosexual orgies and procured boys in their first year at public schools such as the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen Former residents of the Kincora Boys Home in Belfast have asserted that they were trafficked to Mountbatten at Classiebawn Castle his residence in Mullaghmore County Sligo 128 129 130 These claims were dismissed by the Historical Institution Abuse HIA Inquiry 131 121 132 The HIA stated that the article making the original allegations did not give any basis for the assertions that any of these people Mountbatten and others were connected with Kincora 131 In October 2022 Arthur Smyth a former resident of Kincora waived his anonymity to make allegations of child abuse against Mountbatten 133 The allegations are part of a civil case against state authorities responsible for care of children in Kincora 133 Daughter as heir Edit Lord and Lady Mountbatten had two daughters Patricia Knatchbull 14 February 1924 13 June 2017 134 sometime lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth II and Lady Pamela Hicks born 19 April 1929 who accompanied them to India in 1947 1948 and was also sometime lady in waiting to the Queen 5 Since Mountbatten had no sons when he was created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma of Romsey in the County of Southampton on 27 August 1946 135 and then Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Baron Romsey in the County of Southampton on 18 October 1947 136 the Letters Patent were drafted such that in the event he left no sons or issue in the male line the titles could pass to his daughters in order of seniority of birth 54 Leisure interests Edit Mountbatten was passionate about genealogy an interest he shared with other European royalty and nobility according to Ziegler he spent a great deal of his leisure time in studying his links with European royal houses 137 From 1957 until his death Lord Mountbatten was Patron of the Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society 138 He was equally passionate about orders decorations and military ranks and uniforms though he himself considered this interest to be a sign of vanity and constantly tried to distance himself from it with limited success 139 Over the course of his career he consistently attempted to secure as many orders and decorations as possible 140 Particular about details of dress Mountbatten took an interest in fashion design introducing trouser zips a tail coat with broad high lapels and a buttonless waistcoat that could be pulled on over the head 141 In 1949 having by then relinquished the office of Governor General of India but retaining a keen interest in Indian affairs he designed new flags insignia and details of uniforms for the Indian Armed Forces ahead of the transition from British dominion to republic many of his designs were implemented and remain in use 142 Like many members of the royal family Mountbatten was an aficionado of polo He received US patent 1 993 334 in 1931 for a polo stick 143 Mountbatten introduced the sport to the Royal Navy in the 1920s and wrote a book on the subject 7 He also served as Commodore of Emsworth Sailing Club in Hampshire from 1931 144 He was a long serving Patron of the Society for Nautical Research 1951 1979 145 Apart from official documents Mountbatten was not much of a reader though he liked P G Wodehouse s books He enjoyed the cinema his favourite stars were Fred Astaire Rita Hayworth Grace Kelly and Shirley MacLaine In general however he had a limited interest in the arts 146 Mentorship of King Charles III Edit Mountbatten was a strong influence in the upbringing of his grand nephew King Charles III and later as a mentor Honorary Grandfather and Honorary Grandson they fondly called each other according to the Jonathan Dimbleby biography of the then Prince though according to both the Ziegler biography of Mountbatten and the Dimbleby biography of the Prince the results may have been mixed He from time to time strongly upbraided the Prince for showing tendencies towards the idle pleasure seeking dilettantism of his predecessor as Prince of Wales King Edward VIII whom Mountbatten had known well in their youth Yet he also encouraged the Prince to enjoy the bachelor life while he could and then to marry a young and inexperienced girl so as to ensure a stable married life 147 Mountbatten s qualification for offering advice to this particular heir to the throne was unique it was he who had arranged the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Dartmouth Royal Naval College on 22 July 1939 taking care to include the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in the invitation but assigning his nephew Cadet Prince Philip of Greece to keep them amused while their parents toured the facility This was the first recorded meeting of Charles s future parents 148 But a few months later Mountbatten s efforts nearly came to naught when he received a letter from his sister Alice in Athens informing him that Philip was visiting her and had agreed to repatriate permanently to Greece Within days Philip received a command from his cousin and sovereign King George II of Greece to resume his naval career in Britain which though given without explanation the young prince obeyed 149 In 1974 Mountbatten began corresponding with Charles about a potential marriage to his granddaughter Hon Amanda Knatchbull 150 It was about this time he also recommended that the 25 year old prince get on with sowing some wild oats 150 Charles dutifully wrote to Amanda s mother who was also his godmother Lady Brabourne about his interest Her answer was supportive but advised him that she thought her daughter still rather young to be courted 151 In February 1975 Charles visited New Delhi to play polo and was shown around Rashtrapati Bhavan the former Viceroy s House by Mountbatten 152 Four years later Mountbatten secured an invitation for himself and Amanda to accompany Charles on his planned 1980 tour of India 151 Their fathers promptly objected Prince Philip thought that the Indian public s reception would more likely reflect their response to the uncle than to the nephew Lord Brabourne counselled that the intense scrutiny of the press would be more likely to drive Mountbatten s godson and granddaughter apart than together 151 Charles was rescheduled to tour India alone but Mountbatten did not live to the planned date of departure When Charles finally did propose marriage to Amanda later in 1979 the circumstances were changed and she refused him 151 Television appearances EditOn 27 April 1977 shortly before his 77th birthday Mountbatten became the first member of the Royal Family to appear on the TV guest show This Is Your Life 153 In the UK 22 22 million people tuned in to watch the programme 154 Assassination EditMain article Assassination of Louis Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma Christ in Triumph over Darkness and Evil by Gabriel Loire 1982 at St George s Cathedral Cape Town South Africa in memory of Mountbatten Mountbatten usually holidayed at his summer home Classiebawn Castle on the Mullaghmore Peninsula in County Sligo in the north west of Ireland The village was only 12 miles 19 km from the border with County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland and near an area known to be used as a cross border refuge by IRA members 155 156 In 1978 the IRA had allegedly attempted to shoot Mountbatten as he was aboard his boat but poor weather had prevented the sniper taking his shot 157 On 27 August 1979 Mountbatten went lobster potting and tuna fishing in his 30 foot 9 1 m wooden boat Shadow V which had been moored in the harbour at Mullaghmore 156 IRA member Thomas McMahon had slipped onto the unguarded boat the previous night and attached a radio controlled bomb weighing 50 pounds 23 kg When Mountbatten and his party had taken the boat just a few hundred yards from the shore the bomb was detonated The boat was destroyed by the force of the blast and Mountbatten s legs were almost blown off Mountbatten then aged 79 was pulled alive from the water by nearby fishermen but died from his injuries before being brought to shore 156 158 159 Also aboard the boat were his elder daughter Patricia Lady Brabourne her husband Lord Brabourne their twin sons Nicholas and Timothy Knatchbull Lord Brabourne s mother Doreen Dowager Lady Brabourne and Paul Maxwell a young crew member from Enniskillen in County Fermanagh 160 Nicholas aged 14 and Paul aged 15 were killed by the blast and the others were seriously injured 161 Doreen Dowager Lady Brabourne aged 83 died from her injuries the following day 162 The attack triggered outrage and condemnation around the world 163 The Queen received messages of condolence from leaders including US President Jimmy Carter and Pope John Paul II 164 Carter expressed his profound sadness at the death 165 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said His death leaves a gap that can never be filled The British people give thanks for his life and grieve at his passing 166 George Colley the Tanaiste Deputy head of government of the Republic of Ireland said No effort will be spared to bring those responsible to justice It is understood that subversives have claimed responsibility for the explosion Assuming that police investigations substantiate the claim I know that the Irish people will join me in condemning this heartless and terrible outrage 166 The IRA issued a statement afterward saying The IRA claim responsibility for the execution of Lord Louis Mountbatten This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring to the attention of the English people the continuing occupation of our country The death of Mountbatten and the tributes paid to him will be seen in sharp contrast to the apathy of the British Government and the English people to the deaths of over three hundred British soldiers and the deaths of Irish men women and children at the hands of their forces 155 167 Six weeks later 168 Sinn Fein vice president Gerry Adams said of Mountbatten s death The IRA gave clear reasons for the execution I think it is unfortunate that anyone has to be killed but the furor created by Mountbatten s death showed up the hypocritical attitude of the media establishment As a member of the House of Lords Mountbatten was an emotional figure in both British and Irish politics What the IRA did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other people and with his war record I don t think he could have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation He knew the danger involved in coming to this country In my opinion the IRA achieved its objective people started paying attention to what was happening in Ireland 168 In 2015 Adams said in an interview I stand over what I said then I m not one of those people that engages in revisionism Thankfully the war is over 169 On the day of the bombing the IRA also ambushed and killed eighteen British soldiers at the gates of Narrow Water Castle just outside Warrenpoint in County Down in Northern Ireland sixteen of them from the Parachute Regiment in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush 170 It was the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles 156 Funeral Edit Mountbatten s tomb at Romsey Abbey in Hampshire near to his home Broadlands On 5 September 1979 Mountbatten received a ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey which was attended by the Queen the royal family and members of the European royal houses Watched by thousands of people the funeral procession which started at Wellington Barracks included representatives of all three British Armed Services and military contingents from Burma India the United States represented by 70 sailors of the US Navy and 50 US Marines 171 France represented by the French Navy and Canada His coffin was drawn on a gun carriage by 118 Royal Navy ratings 172 173 During the televised service the Prince of Wales later King Charles III read the lesson from Psalm 107 172 In an address the Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan highlighted his various achievements and his lifelong devotion to the Royal Navy 174 After the public ceremonies which he had planned himself Mountbatten was buried in Romsey Abbey 175 176 As part of the funeral arrangements his body had been embalmed by Desmond Henley 177 Aftermath Edit Two hours before the bomb detonated Thomas McMahon had been arrested at a Garda checkpoint between Longford and Granard on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle He was tried for the assassinations in Ireland and convicted on 23 November 1979 based on forensic evidence supplied by James O Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes 178 He was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement 156 179 On hearing of Mountbatten s death the then Master of the Queen s Music Malcolm Williamson wrote the Lament in Memory of Lord Mountbatten of Burma for violin and string orchestra The 11 minute work was given its first performance on 5 May 1980 by the Scottish Baroque Ensemble conducted by Leonard Friedman 180 On his death his estate was valued for probate purposes at 2 196 494 equivalent to 12 000 000 in 2021 181 Legacy EditMountbatten s faults according to his biographer Philip Ziegler like everything else about him were on the grandest scale His vanity though child like was monstrous his ambition unbridled He sought to rewrite history with cavalier indifference to the facts to magnify his own achievements 182 However Ziegler concludes that Mountbatten s virtues outweighed his defects 182 He was generous and loyal He was warm hearted predisposed to like everyone he met quick tempered but never bearing grudges His tolerance was extraordinary his readiness to respect and listen to the views of others was remarkable throughout his life Ziegler argues he was truly a great man although not profound or original 182 What he could do with superlative aplomb was to identify the object at which he was aiming and force it through to its conclusion A powerful analytic mind of crystalline clarity a superabundance of energy great persuasive powers endless resilience in the face of setback or disaster rendered him the most formidable of operators He was infinitely resourceful quick in his reactions always ready to cut his losses and start again He was an executor of policy rather than an initiator but whatever the policy he espoused it with such energy and enthusiasm made it so completely his own that it became identified with him and in the eyes of the outside world as well as his own his creation Others were not so conflicted Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff once told him You are so crooked Dickie that if you swallowed a nail you would shit a corkscrew 183 Mountbatten supported the burgeoning nationalist movements which grew up in the shadow of Japanese occupation His priority was to maintain practical stable government but driving him was an idealism in which he believed every people should be allowed to control their own destiny Critics said he was too ready to overlook their faults and especially their subordination to communist control Ziegler says that in Malaya where the main resistance to the Japanese came from Chinese who were under considerable communist influence Mountbatten proved to have been naive in his assessment He erred however not because he was soft on Communism but from an over readiness to assume the best of those with whom he had dealings Furthermore Ziegler argues he was following a practical policy based on the assumption that it would take a long and bloody struggle to drive the Japanese out and he needed the support of all the anti Japanese elements most of which were either nationalists or communists 184 Mountbatten took pride in enhancing intercultural understanding and in 1984 with his elder daughter as the patron the Mountbatten Institute was developed to allow young adults the opportunity to enhance their intercultural appreciation and experience by spending time abroad 185 The IET annually awards the Mountbatten Medal for an outstanding contribution or contributions over a period to the promotion of electronics or information technology and their application 21 Canada s capital city of Ottawa named Mountbatten Avenue in his memory 186 The Mountbatten estate in Singapore and Mountbatten MRT station were named after him 187 Mountbatten s personal papers containing approximately 250 000 papers and 50 000 photographs are preserved in the University of Southampton Library 188 Awards and decorations EditRibbon Name Date awarded Knight of the Garter KG 1946 189 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath GCB 1955 190 Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath KCB 1945 191 Companion of the Order of the Bath CB 1943 Member of the Order of Merit Military Division OM 1965 192 Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India GCSI 1947 193 n 2 Knight Grand Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire GCIE 1947 194 n 3 Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order GCVO 1937 195 Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order KCVO 1922 196 Member of the Royal Victorian Order MVO 1920 197 Companion of the Distinguished Service Order DSO 1941 37 Knight of Justice of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem KStJ 1940 198 Commander of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem CStJ 1929 199 British War Medal 1918 Victory Medal 1918 1939 45 Star 1945 Atlantic Star 1945 Africa Star 1945 Burma Star 1945 Italy Star 1945 Defence Medal 1945 War Medal 1939 1945 1945 Naval General Service Medal King George V Coronation Medal 1911 King George V Silver Jubilee Medal 1935 King George VI Coronation Medal 1937 Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal 1952 Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal 1977 Indian Independence Medal 1949 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic Kingdom of Spain 1922 200 Order of the Nile Fourth Class Kingdom of Egypt 1922 200 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown Romania 1924 200 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania Romania 1937 200 War Cross Kingdom of Greece 1941 201 Chief Commander of the Legion of Merit United States 1943 202 Special Grand Cordon of the Order of the Cloud and Banner Republic of China 1945 203 Distinguished Service Medal United States 1945 204 Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal United States 1945 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Elephant Kingdom of Thailand 21 January 1946 205 206 Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of Nepal Kingdom of Nepal 10 May 1946 205 207 Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour France 3 June 1946 205 208 1939 1945 War Cross France 3 June 1946 208 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of George I Kingdom of Greece 1946 209 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion Kingdom of the Netherlands 1948 210 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Aviz Portuguese Republic 1951 200 Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim Kingdom of Sweden 1952 Grand Commander of the Order of Thiri Thudhamma Union of Burma 1956 202 Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog Kingdom of Denmark 1962 200 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Seal of Solomon Ethiopian Empire 1965 200 Order of the Distinguished Rule of Izzuddin Maldives 1972 211 King Birendra Coronation Medal Kingdom of Nepal 24 February 1975He was appointed personal aide de camp by Edward VIII George VI 212 and Elizabeth II and therefore bore the unusual distinction of being allowed to wear three royal cyphers on his epaulettes 213 214 Arms EditCoat of arms of Louis Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma Notes The arms of the Earl Mountbatten of Burma consist of Crest Crests of Hesse modified and Battenberg Helm Helms of Hesse modified and Battenberg Escutcheon Within the Garter Quarterly 1st and 4th Hesse with a bordure compony argent and gules 2nd and 3rd Battenberg charged at the honour point with an inescutcheon of the British Royal arms with a label of three points argent the centre point charged with a rose gules and each of the others with an ermine spot sable Princess Alice his grandmother 215 Supporters Two Lions queue fourchee and crowned all or Motto In honour bound Orders The Order of the Garter ribbon Honi soit qui mal y pense Shame be to him who thinks evil of it Notes Edit He was born and known until 1917 as Prince Louis of Battenberg then styled until 1946 Lord Louis Mountbatten and then styled The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma until 1947 As Viceroy and Governor General of India who was the ex officio Grand Master of the order As Viceroy and Governor General of India who was the ex officio Grand Master of the order References EditFootnotes Edit Index entry FreeBMD ONS Retrieved 30 March 2023 Queen Victoria s Journals Tuesday 17th July 1900 I held him and named him Albert Victor Nicholas Louis Francis Louis Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma British Museum Retrieved 7 September 2021 Zuckerman 1981 pp 355 364 a b c Montgomery Massingberd 1973 pp 303 304 a b Queen Victoria 17 July 1900 Journal Entry Tuesday 17th July 1900 queenvictoriasjournals org Retrieved 5 August 2019 a b c Lord Louis Mountbatten Life 17 August 1942 p 63 Retrieved 20 September 2012 via Google Books Ziegler 2011 a b Heathcote 2002 p 183 King amp Wilson 2003 p 49 Hough 1984 p 317 a b c d e f g h i j k l Heathcote 2002 p 184 Ziegler 1985 p 46 Ziegler 1985 pp 47 49 Smith 2010 p 66 Ziegler 1985 p 49 No 32461 The London Gazette 20 September 1921 p 7384 a b Ziegler 1985 p 59 Ziegler 1985 p 60 states that he actually joined HMS Repulse on 25 June 1921 Ziegler 1985 p 73 a b Mountbatten Medal IET Archived from the original on 27 October 2012 Retrieved 20 September 2012 No 33378 The London Gazette 24 April 1928 p 2900 No 33899 The London Gazette 3 January 1933 p 48 No 34279 The London Gazette Supplement 29 April 1936 p 2785 No 34296 The London Gazette Supplement 19 June 1936 p 4012 a b c d e f g Zuckerman 1981 pp 354 366 No 34453 The London Gazette Supplement 10 November 1937 p 7049 No 34414 The London Gazette 2 July 1937 p 4247 a b c d Heathcote 2002 p 185 Mishra Pankaj Exit Wounds The New Yorker Lanham Fritz 5 August 2007 Indian Summer by Alex von Tunzelmann Chron March 1966 p 353 a b c d e f g Heathcote 2002 p 186 Niemi 2006 p 70 No 34918 The London Gazette Supplement 9 August 1940 p 4919 No 35113 The London Gazette Supplement 18 March 1941 p 1654 a b No 35029 The London Gazette Supplement 31 December 1940 p 25 DSO O Toole Thomas 7 December 1982 Mountbatten Predicted Pearl Harbor The Washington Post Retrieved 9 July 2017 Gilbert 1988 p 762 Otway 1990 pp 65 66 First World War Nationalarchives gov uk Retrieved 14 January 2020 Lownie 2019 p 131 Khanna 2015 p 53 Villa 1989 pp 240 241 Who Was Responsible For Dieppe CBC Archives 9 September 1962 Retrieved 1 August 2007 Thompson 2001 pp 263 269 In pictures D Day inventions The Flail BBC News Retrieved 20 September 2012 Lt Col James Allason Obituary The Telegraph London 24 June 2011 Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 Retrieved 20 September 2012 Montefiore 2004 p 501 Heathcote 2002 p 187 Park 1946 p 2156 para 360 Heathcote 2002 p 188 Lord Louis Mountbatten 1900 1979 BBC Retrieved 19 July 2018 a b No 44059 The London Gazette 21 July 1966 p 8227 Japan is not invited to Lord Mountbatten s Funeral The New York Times 5 September 1979 Retrieved 9 July 2017 Talbot amp Singh 2009 p 40 No 37916 The London Gazette 25 March 1947 p 1399 Ziegler 1985 p 359 Jalal 1994 p 250 These instructions were to avoid partition and obtain an unitary government for British India and the Indian States and at the same time observe the pledges to the princes and the Muslims to secure agreement to the Cabinet Mission plan without coercing any of the parties somehow to keep the Indian army undivided and to retain India within the Commonwealth Attlee to Mountbatten 18 March 1947 ibid 972 974 a b White 2012 p 428 Wolpert 2006 p 140 a b Sardesai 2007 pp 309 313 Wolpert 2006 p 141 Greenberg 2005 p 89 Ziegler 1985 p 355 a b Dipesh Navsaria 27 July 1996 Indian Flag Proposals Flags of the World Retrieved 14 March 2020 Wolpert 2006 p 139 Ziegler 1985 p 373 How Vallabhbhai Patel V P Menon and Mountbatten unified India 31 October 2017 Guha 2008 p 57 Stoessinger 2010 p 185 Talbot amp Singh 2009 p xvii Khan 2007 pp 100 101 Hodson 1980 pp 102 106 Tunzelmann 2007 p 4 a b c d Heathcote 2002 p 189 Guha 2008 p 87 Schofield 2010 pp 29 31 Guha 2008 p 83 See e g Wolpert 2006 People Scots of Windsor s Past Windsor s Scottish Heritage Archived from the original on 9 August 2012 Retrieved 20 September 2012 a b Lawrence J Butler 2002 Britain and Empire Adjusting to a Post Imperial World p 72 Ronald Hyam Britain s Declining Empire The Road to Decolonisation 1918 1968 p 113 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 86649 9 2007 McGrath 1996 p 38 Ahmed 1997 p 136 Wolpert 2006 p 163 Ahmed 1997 p 209 Ziegler 1989 pp 14 16 117 No 38681 The London Gazette 2 August 1949 p 3760 No 39802 The London Gazette 17 March 1953 p 1530 Mountbatten of Burma 1st Earl Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten 25 June 1900 27 Aug 1979 Mountbatten Louis Oxford Biography Index 2007 doi 10 1093 ww 9780199540884 013 U157802 Patton 2005 pp 14 17 No 40927 The London Gazette 16 November 1956 p 6492 Ziegler 1985 pp 537 547 Smith 2012 pp 489 508 Smith 2013 pp 105 134 Zuckerman 1981 p 363 Mountbatten 1979 1980 Heathcote 2002 p 190 a b c Healey 1989 p 258 No 43563 The London Gazette Supplement 2 February 1965 p 1147 No 43731 The London Gazette 6 August 1965 p 7446 No 43720 The London Gazette 23 July 1965 p 7029 No 46255 The London Gazette 4 April 1974 p 4399 Heriot Watt University Edinburgh Honorary Graduates www1 hw ac uk Archived from the original on 18 April 2016 Retrieved 11 April 2016 a b c Powell 1996 pp 50 51 221 222 History UWC Archived from the original on 8 January 2014 Retrieved 20 September 2012 Where are they now International Baccalaureate Ibo org Retrieved 26 April 2020 Ecolint Swiss International school in Geneva Ecolint ch 17 September 1924 Retrieved 26 April 2020 The International Baccalaureate IB Programme An International Gateway to Higher Education and Beyond PDF Retrieved 26 April 2020 Barratt amp Ritchie 1991 p 162 House of Commons Proceedings Hansard 10 January 1996 Column 287 Retrieved 20 September 2012 Sawer Patrick 17 August 2019 Revealed Full extent of Lord Mountbatten s role in 68 plot against Harold Wilson The Telegraph Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 Wheeler Brian 9 March 2006 Wilson Plot The Secret Tapes BBC News Retrieved 20 September 2012 Leigh David 10 October 2009 The Defence of the Realm The Authorized History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew The Guardian London Retrieved 20 September 2012 Nice and Friendly Charlie Chaplin Official Website Retrieved 5 August 2022 Chaplin Charlie 6 July 2018 WATCH Charlie Chaplin Nice and Friendly 1922 video youtube com PBS News Hour Ziegler 1985 p 53 a b Hicks 2012 p 24 Aubenas Chardin amp Demange 2007 pp 91 111 a b c Lownie Andrew 7 November 2017 The love lives of Lord and Lady Mountbatten bedhopping gay affairs and dangerous liaisons The Times Retrieved 23 August 2019 subscription required Shukla Srijan 25 August 2019 The private lives of the Mountbattens Open marriage flings and paedophilia Prince Charles mentor perverted News com au 18 August 2019 a b Tucker Grant 18 August 2019 Lord Mountbatten s lust for young men revealed The Sunday Times Retrieved 31 March 2021 subscription required Book tells of bored bullied Queen The Guardian 23 April 2000 Retrieved 23 November 2020 FBI files claim Lord Louis Mountbatten was known to be a homosexual and had a perversion for young boys FBI files allege Lord Mountbatten murdered by the IRA was a pedophile Irish Central 20 August 2019 Retrieved 17 May 2020 Graham Ysenda Maxtone 30 August 2019 The Mountbattens by Andrew Lownie review the dark side of a famous marriage The Times Retrieved 31 March 2021 subscription required Johnson Kathryn 28 November 2019 Mountbatten book author seeks more transparency over child sex allegations Belfast Telegraph Retrieved 17 May 2020 Burca Joseph de The Anglo Irish Vice Ring Village magazine Republic of Ireland Archived from the original on 1 June 2020 Retrieved 17 May 2020 a b Kincora Boys Home PDF Historical Institution Abuse p 59 Retrieved 18 November 2020 Moore 1996 p 90 91 a b Macauley Conor 16 October 2022 Court to hear allegations of abuse by Mountbatten at Belfast home RTE News Retrieved 17 October 2022 Corby Tom 15 June 2017 Countess Mountbatten of Burma obituary The Guardian No 37702 The London Gazette 27 August 1946 p 4305 No 38109 The London Gazette 28 October 1947 p 5074 Ziegler 1985 p 21 117 Further Information Cambridge University Heraldic and Genealogical Society Retrieved 10 August 2022 Ziegler 1985 p 116 117 Vickers 1994 p 184 187 Ziegler 1985 p 109 Chhina Man Aman Singh 2 September 2022 Explained How India adopted its military flags and badges based on Lord Mountbatten s suggestions The Indian Express Retrieved 2 September 2022 Polo Stick United States Patent 1993334 Retrieved 19 July 2021 Emsworth to Langstone PDF Archived from the original PDF on 22 September 2014 Retrieved 19 May 2013 Murphy amp Oddy 2010 p 191 Ziegler 1985 p 116 117 Junor 2005 p 72 Edwards Phil 31 October 2000 The Real Prince Philip TV documentary Real Lives Channel 4 s portrait gallery Channel 4 Retrieved 12 May 2007 Vickers 2000 p 281 a b Dimbleby 1994 pp 204 206 a b c d Dimbleby 1994 pp 263 265 People in Sports The New York Times 22 February 1975 Retrieved 17 November 2020 This Is Your Life 1969 1993 EOFF TV Archived from the original on 22 April 2012 Retrieved 20 September 2012 Features Britain s Most Watched TV 1970s British Film Institute BFI Archived from the original on 22 November 2005 Retrieved 7 July 2016 a b Britain A Nation Mourns Its Loss Time 10 September 1979 Archived from the original on 3 October 2008 Retrieved 20 September 2012 a b c d e On This Day 27 August 1979 IRA Bomb Kills Lord Mountbatten BBC News Retrieved 20 September 2012 Barratt amp Ritchie 1991 p 23 IRA Bombs Kill Mountbatten and 17 Soldiers The Guardian London 28 August 1979 Retrieved 20 September 2012 O Brien 1995 p 55 Queen Mother may get blue plaque tribute The Telegraph London Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 Tim Knatchbull The IRA killed my grandfather but I m glad the Queen met their man The Telegraph London 1 July 2012 Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 Retrieved 20 September 2012 Patton 2005 pp 14 17 Lord Louis Mountbatten Alpha History 19 April 2016 Retrieved 19 November 2019 Seward 2015 p 79 Files show US UK tensions over Northern Ireland in 1979 BBC 30 December 2009 Retrieved 19 November 2019 a b Lord Mountbatten is killed as his fishing boat explodes IRA faction says it set bomb The New York Times 28 August 1979 Retrieved 19 November 2019 English 2004 p 220 a b Amfitheatrof Erik 19 November 1979 Northern Ireland It is Clearly a War Situation Time Retrieved 19 May 2015 Gerry Adams has no apology for Lord Mountbatten murder earl knew the dangers of coming to Ireland Belfast Telegraph 20 May 2015 Retrieved 28 December 2017 Was Narrow Water probe doomed from the start Belfast Telegraph 29 February 2012 Retrieved 17 July 2018 Times R W Apple Jr Special to The New York 6 September 1979 Hushed London Bids Mountbatten Farewell The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved 15 May 2021 a b The Funeral of Lord Mountbatten Imperial War Museum Ceremonial Funeral of Lord Louis Mountbatten of Burma www commsmuseum co uk Retrieved 15 May 2021 On This Day Mountbatten Buried after Final Parade BBC 5 September 1979 Vickers 1989 p 42 Wilson 2016 Kindle locations 33727 33728 In Memoriam Desmond C Henley Christopher Henley Limited Archived from the original on 14 September 2013 Retrieved 8 March 2014 Killer of Lord Mountbatten Enjoys Freedom 30 Years on from IRA Murder The Telegraph London 9 August 2009 Archived from the original on 10 January 2022 Retrieved 20 September 2012 Moloney 2002 p 176 Malcolm Williamson Obituary The Guardian London 4 March 2003 Retrieved 20 September 2012 Evans Rob Pegg David 18 July 2022 187m of Windsor family wealth hidden in secret royal wills The Guardian Retrieved 19 July 2022 a b c Ziegler 1985 p 701 Rankin 2011 p 134 Ziegler 1985 p 314 Mountbatten Institute Retrieved 20 September 2012 Mountbatten Avenue National Inventory of Military Memorials National Defence Canada 16 April 2008 Archived from the original on 10 February 2015 The Old World Charm of Mountbatten Remember Singapore 6 September 2016 Retrieved 29 December 2019 Index University of Suthampton Retrieved 14 September 2021 No 37807 The London Gazette Supplement 3 December 1946 p 5945 KG No 40497 The London Gazette Supplement 3 June 1955 p 3258 GCB No 37023 The London Gazette Supplement 6 April 1945 p 1893 KCB No 43713 The London Gazette 16 July 1965 p 6729 OM No 37916 The London Gazette 25 March 1947 p 1399 GCSI No 37916 The London Gazette 25 March 1947 p 1399 GCIE No 34365 The London Gazette Supplement 29 January 1937 p 693 GCVO No 32730 The London Gazette 18 July 1922 p 5353 KCVO No 32086 The London Gazette 15 October 1920 p 9987 MVO No 34878 The London Gazette 21 June 1940 p 3777 KJStJ No 33453 The London Gazette 1 January 1929 p 49 CStJ a b c d e f g Debrett s Peerage and Baronetage Kingston upon Thames Surrey Kelly s Directories 1976 p 882 via Google Books No 35538 The London Gazette Supplement 24 April 1942 p 1850 Military Cross Second Class Greece a b Ziegler 1989 pp 18 254 No 37023 The London Gazette Supplement 6 April 1945 p 1895 Order of the Cloud and Banner China No 37299 The London Gazette Supplement 5 October 1945 p 4954 DSM US a b c Draped with Honors Mountbatten Steps Down as Defense Chief Pittsburgh Post Gazette Associated Press 17 July 1965 Retrieved 13 September 2013 via Google News Ziegler 1988 p 288 Ziegler 1988 p 332 a b Ziegler 1988 p 341 No 37777 The London Gazette Supplement 1 November 1946 p 5418 Order of George I Greece No 38176 The London Gazette 13 January 1948 p 274 Order of the Netherlands Lion President Waheed Confers the order of Nishan Izzuddeen on Palestinian President The President s Office Government of the Republic of Maldives 5 June 2013 Retrieved 10 July 2022 No 34365 The London Gazette Supplement 29 January 1937 p 687 Personal Naval Aide de Camp to HM The King Royalty Lord Mountbatten Alamy Retrieved 4 March 2020 Earl Mountbatten of Bruma International Center of Photography 3 March 2016 Retrieved 5 March 2021 Lee 1999 pp 15 135 amp 136 Works cited Edit Ahmed Akbar S 1997 Jinnah Pakistan and Islamic Identity The Search for Saladin London Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 14966 2 Aubenas Sylvie Chardin Virginie Demange Xavier 2007 Elegance The Seeberger Brothers and the Birth of Fashion Photography Chronicle Books ISBN 978 0 8118 5942 4 Barratt John Ritchie Jean 1991 With the greatest respect the private lives of Earl Mountbatten and Prince amp Princess Michael of Kent London Sidgwick amp Jackson ISBN 978 0 283 06098 4 Dimbleby Jonathan 1994 The Prince of Wales A Biography New York Morrow ISBN 978 0 688 12996 5 English Richard 2004 Armed Struggle The History of the IRA London Pan Macmillan ISBN 978 0 330 49388 8 Gilbert Martin 1988 Never Despair Winston Churchill 1945 65 London Minerva ISBN 978 0 7493 9104 1 Greenberg Jonathan D 2005 Generations of Memory Remembering Partition in India Pakistan and Israel Palestine Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East 25 1 89 110 doi 10 1215 1089201x 25 1 89 Guha Ramachandra 2008 India After Gandhi The History of the World s Largest Democracy London Pan ISBN 978 0 330 39611 0 Healey Denis 1989 The Time of My Life London Michael Joseph ISBN 978 0 413 77796 6 Heathcote Tony 2002 The British Admirals of the Fleet 1734 1995 Havertown Pen amp Sword ISBN 978 0 85052 835 0 Hicks Pamela 2012 Daughter of Empire Life as a Mountbatten London Weidenfeld amp Nicolson ISBN 978 0 297 86482 0 Hodson H V 1980 Earl Mountbatten s role in the partition of India The Round Table 70 277 102 106 doi 10 1080 00358538008453429 ISSN 0035 8533 Hough Richard 1984 Louis and Victoria The Family History of the Mountbattens 2nd ed London Weidenfeld and Nicolson ISBN 978 0 297 78470 8 Jalal Ayesha 1994 The Sole Spokesman Jinnah the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 45850 4 Junor Penny 2005 The Firm The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor New York Thomas Dunne Books ISBN 978 0 312 35274 5 Khan Yasmin 2007 The Great Partition The Making of India and Pakistan New Haven Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 12078 3 Khanna K K 2015 Art of Generalship United Service Institution ISBN 978 93 82652 93 9 via Google Books King Greg Wilson Penny 2003 The Fate of the Romanovs Hoboken New Jersey Wiley ISBN 978 0 471 20768 9 Lee Brian 1999 British Royal Bookplates Aldershot Scolar Press ISBN 978 0 85967 883 4 Lownie Andrew 2019 The Mountbattens Their Lives And Loves London Blink Publishing ISBN 978 1 64313 791 9 March Edgar J 1966 British Destroyers A History of Development 1892 1953 Guildford England Billing amp Sons OCLC 1894771 McGrath Allen 1996 The Destruction of Pakistan s Democracy Karachi Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 577583 9 Moloney Ed 2002 A Secret History of the IRA London Allen Lane ISBN 978 0 393 32502 7 Montefiore Simon Sebag 2004 Stalin The Court of the Red Tsar New York Knopf ISBN 978 1 4000 4230 2 Montgomery Massingberd Hugh 1973 Burke s Guide to the Royal Family London Burke s Peerage ISBN 978 0 220 66222 6 Moore Chris 1996 The Kincora scandal political cover up and intrigue in Northern Ireland Dublin Marino Press ISBN 978 1 86023 029 5 Mountbatten Louis Winter 1979 1980 A Military Commander Surveys The Nuclear Arms Race International Security 4 3 3 5 doi 10 2307 2626691 JSTOR 2626691 S2CID 154271535 Murphy Hugh Oddy Derek J 2010 The Mirror of the Seas A Centenary History of the Society for Nautical Research London Society for Nautical Research ISBN 978 0 902387 01 0 Niemi Robert 2006 History in the Media Film and Television Santa Barbara California ABC CLIO ISBN 978 1 57607 952 2 via Google Books O Brien Brendan 1995 The Long War The IRA and Sinn Fein Dublin The O Brien Press ISBN 978 0 86278 606 9 Otway Lieutenant Colonel T B H 1990 The Second World War 1939 1945 Army Airborne Forces Imperial War Museum ISBN 978 0 901627 57 5 Park Keith August 1946 Air Operations in South East Asia 3rd May 1945 to 12th September 1945 PDF London War Office via Hyperwar Foundation published in No 39202 The London Gazette Supplement 13 April 1951 pp 2127 2172 Patton Allyson March 2005 Broadlands Lord Mountbatten s Country Home British Heritage 26 1 14 17 ISSN 0195 2633 Powell Charles 1996 Juan Carlos of Spain Houndmills MacMillan Press St Antony s Series ISBN 978 0 333 54726 7 Rankin Nicholas 2011 Ian Fleming s Commandos The Story of 30 Assault Unit in World War II Faber amp Faber ISBN 978 0 571 25062 2 Sardesai Damodar 2007 India The Definitive History Boulder Colorado Westview ISBN 978 0 8133 4352 5 Schofield Victoria 2010 Kashmir in Conflict India Pakistan and the Unending War New York I B Tauris ISBN 978 1 84885 105 4 Seward Ingrid 2015 The Queen s Speech An Intimate Portrait of the Queen in her Own Words Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 1 4711 5097 5 Smith Adrian 2010 Mountbatten Apprentice War Lord 1900 1943 London I B Tauris amp Co Ltd ISBN 978 1 848 85374 4 2012 Rewriting History Admiral Lord Mountbatten s Efforts to Distance Himself From the 1956 Suez Crisis Contemporary British History 26 4 489 508 doi 10 1080 13619462 2012 676912 S2CID 145579429 2013 Resignation of a First Sea Lord Mountbatten and the 1956 Suez Crisis History 98 329 105 134 doi 10 1111 j 1468 229X 2012 00576 x JSTOR 24429571 via jstor Stoessinger John 2010 Why Nations Go to War Boston Wadsworth Cengage Learning ISBN 978 0 495 79718 0 Talbot Ian Singh Gurharpal 2009 The Partition of India Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 67256 6 Thompson Julian 2001 The Royal Marines From Sea Soldiers to a Special Force London Pan ISBN 978 0 330 37702 7 Tunzelmann Alex von 2007 Indian Summer The Secret History of the End of an Empire London Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 0 7432 8588 9 Vickers Hugo November 1989 The Man Who Was Never Wrong Royalty Monthly 42 2000 Alice Princess Andrew of Greece London Hamish Hamilton ISBN 978 0 241 13686 7 1994 Royal Orders the honours and the honoured London Boxtree ISBN 1 85283 510 9 Villa Brian Loring 1989 Unauthorised Action Mountbatten and the Dieppe Raid Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 540804 1 White Matthew 2012 The Great Big Book of Horrible Things New York W W Norton ISBN 978 0 393 08192 3 Wilson Scott 2016 Resting Places The Burial Sites of More Than 14 000 Famous Persons 3rd Kindle ed McFarland amp Company Inc ISBN 978 1 4766 2599 7 Wolpert Stanley A 2006 Shameful Flight The Last Years of the British Empire in India Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 539394 1 Ziegler Philip 1985 Mountbatten The Official Biography London HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 00 216543 3 January 2011 first published 2004 Mountbatten Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas first Earl Mountbatten of Burma 1900 1979 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 31480 Subscription or UK public library membership required Ziegler Philip ed 1988 Personal Diary of Admiral the Lord Louis Mountbatten Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia 1943 1946 1st ed London William Collins Sons amp Co ISBN 0 00 217607 6 ed 1989 From Shore to Shore The Tour Diaries of Earl Mountbatten of Burma 1953 1979 London HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 00 217606 4 via Google Books Zuckerman Lord November 1981 Earl Mountbatten of Burma KG OM 25 June 1900 27 August 1979 Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 27 354 366 doi 10 1098 rsbm 1981 0014 JSTOR 769876 Further reading EditColl Rebecca 2017 Autobiography and history on screen The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television 37 4 665 682 doi 10 1080 01439685 2016 1187847 ISSN 0143 9685 S2CID 159708448 Copland Ian 1993 Lord Mountbatten and the integration of the Indian states A reappraisal Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 21 2 385 408 doi 10 1080 03086539308582896 ISSN 0308 6534 Grove Eric Rohan Sally Rohan 1999 The Limits of Opposition Admiral Earl Mountbatten of Burma First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff Contemporary British History 13 2 98 116 doi 10 1080 13619469908581531 ISSN 1361 9462 Hough Richard 1980 Mountbatten Hero of Our Time London Weidenfeld amp Nicolson ISBN 978 0 297 77805 9 Knatchbull Timothy 2010 From a Clear Blue Sky London Arrow ISBN 978 0 09 954358 9 Leigh David 1988 The Wilson Plot The Intelligence Services and the Discrediting of a Prime Minister 1945 1976 London Heinemann ISBN 978 0 434 41340 9 McLynn Frank 2011 The Burma Campaign Disaster into Triumph 1942 1945 New Haven Connecticut Yale University Press ISBN 978 0 300 17836 4 Moore R J 1981 Mountbatten India and the Commonwealth Journal of Commonwealth amp Comparative Politics 19 1 5 43 doi 10 1080 14662048108447372 ISSN 0306 3631 Murfett Malcolm 1995 The First Sea Lords from Fisher to Mountbatten Westport Connecticut Praeger ISBN 978 0 275 94231 1 Neillands Robin 2005 The Dieppe Raid the story of the disastrous 1942 expedition Bloomington Indiana Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 34781 7 Nordenvall Per 1998 Kungl Serafimerorden 1748 1998 The Royal Order of the Seraphim 1748 1998 in Swedish Stockholm Kungl Maj ts orden ISBN 978 91 630 6744 0 Ritter Jonathan Templin 2017 Stilwell and Mountbatten in Burma Allies at War 1943 1944 Denton Texas University of North Texas Press ISBN 978 1 57441 674 9 Roberts Andrew 2004 Eminent Churchillians London Phoenix ISBN 978 1 85799 213 7 Smith Adrian 1991 Command and Control in Postwar Britain Defence Decision making in the United Kingdom 1945 1984 Twentieth Century British History 2 3 291 327 doi 10 1093 tcbh 2 3 291 August 2006 Mountbatten goes to the movies Promoting the heroic myth through cinema Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television 26 3 395 416 doi 10 1080 01439680600799421 S2CID 191491309 Terraine John 1968 The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten London Hutchinson ISBN 978 0 09 088810 8 Villa Brian Loring Henshaw Peter J June 1998 The Dieppe Raid Debate Canadian Historical Review 79 2 304 315 ISSN 0008 3755 Wheen Francis 2001 Tom Driberg The Soul of Indiscretion London Fourth Estate ISBN 978 1 84115 575 3 Ankit Rakesh 2021 Mountbatten and India 1964 79 after Nehru Contemporary British History 35 4 569 596 doi 10 1080 13619462 2021 1944113 ISSN 1361 9462 S2CID 237793636 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Louis Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma Wikiquote has quotations related to Louis Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma Tribute amp Memorial Website to Louis 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma 70th Anniversary of Indian Independence Mountbatten The Last Viceroy UK Parliament Living Heritage Hansard 1803 2005 contributions in Parliament by the Earl Mountbatten of Burma Papers of Louis Earl Mountbatten of Burma Newspaper clippings about Louis Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBWGovernment officesPreceded byThe Viscount Wavell Viceroy of India1947 Partition of IndiaNew title Governor General of India1947 1948 Succeeded byChakravarti RajagopalachariHonorary titlesPreceded byThe Duke of Wellington Governor of the Isle of Wight1965 1974 VacantTitle next held byLord MottistoneNew title Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight1974 1979 Succeeded byJohn NicholsonMilitary officesPreceded byHerbert Packer Fourth Sea Lord1950 1952 Succeeded bySydney RawPreceded byJohn Edelsten Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet1952 1954 Succeeded byGuy GranthamPreceded byRhoderick McGrigor First Sea Lord1955 1959 Succeeded byCharles LambePreceded byWilliam Dickson Chief of the Defence Staff1959 1965 Succeeded byRichard HullPreceded byRustu Erdelhun Chairman of the NATO Military Committee1960 1961 Succeeded byLyman LemnitzerPeerage of the United KingdomNew creation Earl Mountbatten of Burma1947 1979 Succeeded byPatricia Knatchbullas CountessViscount Mountbatten of Burma1946 1979 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Louis Mountbatten 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma amp oldid 1147378009, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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