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Louis of Battenberg, the great grandson of Queen Victoria, and second cousin of George V, was born in Windsor, England, on 25th June, 1900. His father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, had been born in Austria. As a result of the anti-German feelings in Britain during the First World War the family changed its name from Battenberg to Mountbatten.
Mountbatten was educated at Osborne and Dartmouth Royal Naval College (1913-16). He joined the Royal Navy and during the war he served on board Lion and Elizabeth.
Mountbatten remained in the Royal Navy and on the outbreak of the Second World War was captain of the destroyer Kelly. He saw action during the Norwegian campaign and the ship was sunk off Crete on 23rd May 1940 with the loss of 130 men.
Winston Churchill appointed Mountbatten head of Combined Operations Command on 27th October 1941. He launched a series of commando raids including the disastrous Dieppe Raid in August 1942. The decision by Churchill to promote Mountbatten to vice admiral, lieutenant general and air marshall ahead of older and more experienced men upset senior officers in the military establishment.
In October 1943 Churchill appointed Mountbatten as head of the Southeast Asia Command (SEAC). Working closely with General William Slim Mountbatten directed the liberation of Burma and Singapore.
In 1947 Clement Attlee selected Mountbatten as Viceroy of India and he oversaw the creation of the independent states of India and Pakistan.
Mountbatten returned to service at sea and as Fourth sea Lord was commander of the Mediterranean Fleet (1952-55). He was also First Sea Lord (1955-59) and Chief of Defence Staff (1959-65). Louis Mountbatten was murdered by an IRA bomb while sailing near his holiday home in County Sligo, Ireland, on 27th August, 1979.
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(1) Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (1947)
Last spring the Germans had constructed huge tents in an open space in the Lager. For the whole of the good season each of them had catered for over 1,000 men: now the tents had been taken down, and an excess 2,000 guests crowded our huts. We old prisoners knew that the Germans did not like these irregularities and that something would soon happen to reduce our number.
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