Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten (1900 – 1979) was the son of Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg, a minor German prince, and Princess Victoria, a granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria. He was known as Prince Louis Francis of Battenberg until 1917, when his father relinquished his German titles and assumed the surname Mountbatten.
Mountbatten entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1913 and served as a midshipman in World War I. During World War II, he commanded the HMS Kelly and the 5th Destroyer Flotilla before becoming Chief of Combined Operations in 1941. He also served as the Supreme Allied Commander for the Southeast Asia Theatre from 1943-1946.
In 1947, Mountbatten was appointed as the last British Viceroy to India; he oversaw the transfer of power to the independent nations India and Pakistan in August of that year, and was made Earl of Burma that October. He served as the first Governor-General of India until June 1948. Mountbatten assumed the post of First Sea Lord in 1955 and served until 1959, when he became Chief of the United Kingdom Defense Staff. In 1965 he resigned the post when he was appointed Governor of the Isle of Wight.
Mountbatten was assassinated in 1979 by terrorists affiliated with the Irish Republican Army.
Mountbatten's best known work is Combined Operations: The Official Story of the Commandos, written in 1943, but his first book, An Introduction to Polo, was published in 1931 under the pseudonym "Marco." He also wrote Report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff by the Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia, 1943-1945, published in 1951. His diaries were published posthumously under the titles The Diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten; 1920-1922: Tours with the Prince of Wales; Journals of a Young Naval Officer on a Royal Tour of New Zealand and Australia with his Cousin the Prince of Wales; From Shore to Shore: The Tour of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, 1953-1979; and Personal Diary of Admiral the Lord Louis Mountbatten Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia, 1943-1946. Many of his speeches have also been published.
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Alternative names
- Lord Mountbatten
History Created April 29, 2008 · 2 revisions
| August 17, 2010 | Edited by OnyxWar | Added birth and death dates and short bio of Lord Mountbatten, of whom "Marco" is a pen-name |
| April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | initial import |