British Royal Navy officer and statesman, an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II. During the Second World War, he was Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command. He was the last Viceroy of India and the first governor-general of independent India.
Born Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas, he was the fourth child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse-Darmstadt, granddaughter of Britain’s Queen Victoria. In 1913, he joined the Royal Navy, and during World War I, he served as a midshipman. Anti-German sentiment was steadily increasing, so his father anglicized the family name to Mountbatten during 1917. In 1919, he matriculated at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, and many years later, he was elected an Honorary Fellow, 1946. He received much of his education at Osborne and Dartmouth Royal Navy Colleges, and in 1921, he became aide-de-camp to the Prince of Wales. Quickly progressing in rank, he was promoted to captain in 1932, and one year later, he qualified as an interpreter in both French and German.
At the onset of World War II, Lord Mountbatten was put in command of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla, and in April 1941, he was named Chief of Combined Operations, a position he held until 1943. From 1943-1946, he was the Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Command; while this appointment brought both criticism and charges of nepotism, Mountbatten drove the Japanese forces out of Burma and forced them to surrender in Malaya in 1945. After an illustrious World War II career, he became the last British Viceroy of India from March to August 1947 and participated in the final diplomatic negotiations to create independence for India and Pakistan. Afterward, he served as India’s Governor-General until 1948. He also had the title of First Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
In 1955, he became the First Sea Lord, and a year later, he was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet, the highest rank in the Royal Navy. Lord Mountbatten became Chief of the Defense Staff in 1959, a position he held until 1965 when he retired. He was appointed governor of the Isle of Wight, and in 1974, he was made Lord Lieutenant.
In 1922, he married Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley at St. Margaret’s in Westminster; his wife died in 1960.
Reportedly a target of terrorists affiliated with the Irish Republican Army, Lord Mountbatten died when a bomb blew up his fishing boat off the Irish coast on 27 August 1979.
Link to Wikipedia biography