Mountbatten, Louis (1900-1979), a member of the British royal family, was the last viceroy (ruler) of the United Kingdom’s colony of India. As viceroy, he helped arrange for India’s independence. Mountbatten was also a distinguished military leader. He served as chief of combined British operations during World War II (1939-1945). He later became first sea lord, the United Kingdom’s highest naval officer.
Mountbatten was born on June 25, 1900, in Windsor, England. His given and family name was Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Battenberg. He was the son of Prince Louis of Battenberg. The family name was changed to Mountbatten because of anti-German feeling in the United Kingdom during World War I (1914-1918). Louis Mountbatten joined the Royal Navy in 1913. He studied at the Royal Naval College.
When World War II began in 1939, Mountbatten was commander of the destroyer Kelly. German bombers sank the ship in the Battle of Crete in 1941. Half the Kelly‘s crew of 240 was killed. The rest, including Mountbatten, clung to the wreckage for four hours under enemy fire before being rescued. In 1942, he became chief of combined operations. Mountbatten led a task force that planned raids on German-occupied areas in Europe, including the controversial raid on the French port of Dieppe (see World War II (D-Day) ). He took command of the Allied forces in Southeast Asia in 1943 and led the reconquest of Burma (now Myanmar) and Peninsular Malaysia from Japan.
Mountbatten was named viceroy of India in March 1947. He skillfully supervised the end of British rule in India in spite of deep rivalries among many of India’s Hindu and Muslim inhabitants. The arrangement included the division of the country into the Hindu-dominated nation of India and the smaller Muslim-dominated nation of Pakistan. In August 1947, Mountbatten was chosen the first governor general of independent India. He returned to naval service in June 1948. Mountbatten was first sea lord from 1955 to 1959 and chief of the United Kingdom defense staff from 1959 to 1965.
Mountbatten retired in 1965. He was killed on Aug. 27, 1979, when a bomb exploded his fishing boat off the coast of Ireland. The Provisional Irish Republican Army, a terrorist group seeking Northern Ireland’s independence from the United Kingdom claimed responsibility for the bombing.
