Mountbatten: life of service

Press, 29 August 1979, Page 12

Mountbatten: life of service

A leading naval commander, military strategist, and colonial administrator — Earl Mountbatten of Burma was all these and more in a full life, which ended violently in the explosion aboard his boat off North-western Ireland on Monday. 1 His wartime achievements I included the organisation of I the Royal Marine commanidos, becoming the youngest ’admiral in the Royal Navy’s history, and the youngest allied supreme commander. He helped plan both the North African invasion in 1942 and the invasion of France in 1944. Lord Mountbatten was born at Windsor on June 25, 1900, the younger son of Admiral of the Fleet, the first Marquess of Milford Haven, and Princess Victoria of Hesse, the grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, who held him at his christening. Members of his immediate family married into the German, Russian, Scandinavian, Spanish, Rumanian, and Yugoslav royal families. Known as Prince Louis Francis of Battenberg until 1917 (when his father relinquished his German title and assumed the surname of Mountbatten) and then as Lord Louis Mountbatten, he was educated at Osborne and Dartmouth. He joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in May 1913 and saw two and a-half years’ service at sea in the First World War.

One of the lowest points in his life came when antiGerman sentiments swept through Britain in the war and his father was forced to resign as First Sea Lord because of his German birth

and the surname, Battenberg. (The German-descended Royal family changed its family name to Windsor at the same time in 1917). "It was all rather ludicrous,” the Earl said. "I had been bom in England and I had always felt completely English. Having an English name didn’t make me any more English.” In 1919, Lord Mountbatten went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, for a shortened post-war course, before returning to his naval career. In the early 1920 s he accompanied his second cousin, the Prince of Wales, as an aide-de-camp on his tour of Australia and New Zealand, and again when the Prince visited India, Japan and the Far East.

For the next two years Lord Mountbatten was at sea — in command first of H.M.S. Daring and then of H.M.S. Wishart. In 1936 he served in the Naval Air Division of the Admiralty and was promoted Captain ip 1937. His 1937 promotion within a week of his thirty-seventh birthday made Mountbatten the youngest captain in the Royal Navy. In 1939 Lord Mountbatten was appointed to command the first flotilla of the Royal Navy’s latest type of destroyer, the K-class. For 21 months he led the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla from his flagship, Kelly, which was sunk on May 23, 1941, during the battle for Crete, by 24 Stuka dive-bombers. She turned over at 32 knots and her guns were still firing as she sank. The crew were literally

washed overboard, and fewer than half survived the sinking and the subsequent machine-gunning.

Earlier, the Kelly had been mined off Norway, torpedoed in the North Sea — when Lord Mountbatten brought her home with her bows almost blown off.

He was appointed to command the aircraft carrier Illustrious in 1941 and that same year became Commodore Combined Operations. In March, 1942, he was made Chief of Combined Operations with the acting rank of vice-admiral and the honorary ranks of lieutenantgeneral in the Army and Air Marshal in the Royal Air Force. He was also made the fourth member of the United Kingdom Chiefs of Staff Committee and was thus a member of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in 1942 and 1943. As Chief of Combined Operations he used the experience gained in the

Vaagso, Bruneva! and St Nazaire raids and the reconnaissance in force in Dieppe, to help plan both the North African invasion in 1942 and the invasion of France in 1944. Before the invasion took place, however, he had been appointed in the Autumn of 1943 Supreme Allied Commander of the newly-formed South-East Asia Command, with the acting rank of admiral, the youngest admiral in the history of the Royal Navy, and by far the youngest supreme commander. He held this appointment until 1946, being responsible for the direction of and final victory in the Burma Campaign. After the war, in March, 1947, he was temporarily detached from the Royal Navy to become the last Viceroy of India. As Viceroy he solved the hitherto intractable problem of how to transfer power in less than 5 months and in August 1947, after the transfer of power, he was invited by the Indians to become their first Constitutional Governor-General and stayed on 10 months.

Britain’s post-war Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, had sent Mountbatten to Delhi in March, 1947, afraid that India was heading towards a civil war. Lord Mountbatten had replaced General Lord Wavell, who failed to please Mr Attlee. “All that he (General Wavell) brought back was a military evacuation plan,” Mr Attlee had complained to Lord Mountbatten.

Purposeful, ambitious and determined, Lord Mountbatten organised his political talks with Nehru and others like a military operation. The communal killings between Hindus and Muslims had already begun when Lord Mountbatten arrived to take up his new high post in Delhi.

Then came Lord Mountbatten’s meetings with Mahatma Gandhi, who startled the Viceroy by saying that the leader of the Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, should be invited to form a Cabinet. Gandhi said it was the only way to avoid a bloodbath. /

Tlje communal killings continued and it became increasingly difficult for Lord Mountbatten to see the way ahead in his talks with Mr Jinnah, who wanted a separate Muslim State.

He was given a Viscountcy and make a Knight of the Garter for his services in the war and an Earldom for his services in India.

He returned to the Royal Navy as a Rear-Admiral in 1948 and commanded the First Cruiser Squadron where, in 1949, he was promoted to Vice-Admiral. Then, after nearly two years as Fourth Sea Lord, he again became an acting admiral on being appointed Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean in 1952.

In 1953 he set up the Allied Headquarters, Mediterranean in Malta, and became concurrently with his British Command, the first Commander - in - Chief, Allied Forces Mediterranean. He

was finally promoted to the substantive rank of Admiral that same year. In 1955, Lord Mountbatten became First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, the first son to succeed his father in this appointment, and in 1956 he was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet. In 1959, he became Chief of the United Kingdom Defence Staff and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, from which post he retired in July 1965. As Chief of the Defence Staff he was responsible for welding together Britain’s Defence Services into one administrative organisation, whereby the former Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry became departments within the unified Ministry of Defence. Lord Mountbatten was personal Naval Aide-de-Camp to King Edward VIII and King George VI and in 1953 became personal aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth 11. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1947 and received the Order of Merit in 1965. For war service he received the highest orders from France, the Netherlands, Greece, China, Nepal and Burma. From the United States he -received the Legion of Merit for his part in preparing for the Allied invasion of Normandy and the Army

Distinguished Service Medal for the Allied victory in Burma. At the end of the war he became Grand President of three Commonwealth-wide organisations, the British Commonwealth Ex-Services League (in which he was succeeded by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1974), the Royal Life Saving Society (in which he was succeeded by Princess Alexandra in November, 1972) and the Royal Over-Seas League. In 1967 he became president of the International Council of the United World Colleges (of which there are now three, one in south Wales, one on Vancouver Island in Canada, and one in Singapore) aimed at promoting greater international understanding through education.

Lord Mountbatten was a notable scientist with an interest in engineering and 1 electronics which went back ! to his first years of service ’ in the Royal Navy during World War I. He qualified as a chartered electrical engineer in 1926, specialised in wireless operations for the Navy between the World Wars, wrote handbooks on wireless telegraphy, and had a number of inventions adopted by the Navy. Before the invasion of France in 1944 it was Lord Mountbatten who suggested the devices which became famous as “Pluto” — pipeline laid under the dcean — the system which kept fuel flowing to British, American and French mechanised forces as they advanced across northern Europe into Germany. Lord Mountbatten also helped to advise on the construction of the huge, artificial Mulberry Harbours which were floated across the English channel to speed up the landings in France. By the time the harbours went into use, however, he had already been transferred to the Far East as Supreme Commander of the newly formed South-East Asia Command. Lord Mountbatten’s scientific interests continued after the end of World War 11, in spite of his crowded political and naval activities. He was a founder and first chairman of the National Electronics Council in Britain and in 1966 achieved the highest scientific distinction when he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He once said of himself that: “The really important thing about me is that I am the man who cured lameness in horses.” In addition to that, however, he is credited with such curious achievements as inventing new forms of naval communications, better slide fasteners, a more efficient polo mallet, a new torpedo sight, and even plastic shoelaces. In July, 1922, Lord Mountbatten married Edwina Cynthia Ashley. She was bom

in 1900, her father being Colonel Wilfrid Ashley, for some years Minister of Transport, and her mother the only daughter of Sir Ernest Cassel, a millionaire friend of King Edward VII. She was always a great favourite with Sir Ernest and, her mother having died in 1911, he left her on his death in 1921 nearly all his vast fortune.

Lady Mountbatten became one of the leading figures in London society. She was fond of outdoor sports, taking a prominent part in yachting, motorboating, swimming, and even polo. She died in 1960. Lord Mountbatten is survived by two daughters, Lady Patricia Brabourne, who married Lord Brabourne, and Lady Pamela Hicks, who married an interior designer, Mr David Hicks. Lord Mountbatten was affectionately known as “Uncle Dickie” by the Royal Family.

“He was a constant adviser to Her Majesty and was always there to offer his guidance,” said Mr Patrick Montague-Smith, editor of Debrett’s Peerage. Lord Mountbatten. second cousin to the Queen, grew up with the Royal Family.

His family, the oldest Protestant ruling house in the world, can be traced back to Charlemagne. He was a close friend of Edward VIII, who was his best man at his marriage in 1922.

His love of the Navy was one of the reasons why Prince Philip joined it. As his uncle, he had a great

deal to do with Prince Philip’s upbringing.

Lord Mountbatten felt very close co the Queen and it is said in a book due to be published next month on his life: “He felt closer tn her than he had to her father or her uncle.”

He became her persona! aide-de-camp in 1953Prince Philip and the Queen were frequent visitors to his home after they were married in 1947.

The Royal couple stayed at his Malta home when Prince Philip was serving with the Mediterranean fleet. ' In turn, he was often a “ guest of the Royal Family. ■’ Earlier this year he was I still accompanying Prince Philip and Prince Charles on ’ shooting expeditions across the moors near Sand- '■ ringham. The Queen, when the young Princess Elizabeth, ' and Princess Margaret were playmates of his daughters, Patricia and Pamela.

He introduced the Royal Family to polo — he learned the game while in India and 1 became one of Britain’s finest players. “He certainly enjoyed a special relationship with the Royal Family,” said Mr Montague-Smith, “They all called him Uncle Dickie, He influenced the upbringing of Prince Philip and was a great friend of the Duke of Windsor “His views would be greatly respected by the Queen, as he was the only male of his generation left associated with the Royal Family. “He was liked by them all.”