Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl
Mountbatten of Burma was born in 1900 as the youngest son of Prince Louis of
Battenberg.
During the First World War
Mountbatten served as a midshipman in Admiral David Beatty's flagships. After
that he accompanied the Prince of Wales - King Edward VIII - on two tours of
the empire.
With his knowledge and expertise of a
professional sailor Mountbatten commanded a destroyer flotilla in the Second
World War which was part of the Battle of Crete in 1941. He became the chief of
combined operations in 1942.
1943 He was the supreme Allied
commander in South-east Asia. He restored the morale and capacity of the
Commonwealth forces fighting the Japanese in Burma.
1943 and 1944 He was part of the
planning the Italian campaigns and the D-Day landing in Normandy.
The viceroy of India Mountbatten
was responsible for the transition to independence in 1947. Even so there were
terrific riots and massacres before the independence was establish. The new
Indian Government asked Mountbatten to remain as governor-general till 1948.
1952 Mountbatten returned to his
naval career. He was chief of the defence staff from 1959-1965. He supervised
the merger of the service ministries into a unified ministry of defence.
In his retirement he was a great
opponent of nuclear weapons.
He was murdered by the Irish
Republican Army while sailing near his holiday home in Ireland in 1979. He was
a man very greatly respected and therefore shock wave went throughout the world
by this terrible murder.
UPDATE: The Queen is visiting
Northern Ireland as part of her Diamond Jubilee celebration. She will meet
Martin McGuinness who was the IRA commander and indirectly responsible of this
terrible act of killing Lord Mountbatten by a bomb explosion. The Queen is willing to shake hands as a sign
of reconciliation. Martin McGuinness is now the Northern Ireland’s Deputy First
Minister.
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