Louis Mountbatten (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was Viceroy and Governor-General of India from 12 February 1947 to 21 June 1948, succeeding Archibald Wavell and preceding Chakravarti Rajagopalachari. He also served as First Sea Lord from 18 April 1955 to 19 October 1959, succeeding Rhoderick McGrigor and preceding Charles Lambe.
Biography[]
Mountbatten in 1948
Louis Mountbatten was born in Windsor, Berkshire, England on 25 June 1900, the son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. He served in the Royal Navy during World War I, and he was later suspected of sympathy for the UK Labor Party while serving on the Standing Committee of the Cambridge Union Society. Mountbatten rose in the ranks of the Royal Navy during peacetime, becoming a Captain in 1937. At the start of World War II, Mountbatten oversaw the evacuation of the former King Edward VIII of Britain from France and the evacuation of Allied troops from Norway. In 1941, he became a commodore, and he served in various positions in the Mediterranean fleet before being sent to command all Allied forces in Southeast Asia in 1943. Mountbatten oversaw the recapture of Burma, and he had the honor of overseeing the Japanese surrender in Singapore at the war's end in 1945. His Labor Party sympathies led to Prime Minister Clement Attlee appointng him Viceroy of India in 1947, and he supported Indian National Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru while opposing Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Mountbatten oversaw the formation of a timeline for Indian independence, and he was given the thankless task of ensuring that the British Raj was successfully partitioned. After leaving office as Governor-General, he went on to serve as Fourth Sea Lord in 1950 (with the rank of Vice-Admiral), commander of the NATO forces in the Mediterranean in 1953, First Sea Lord from 1955 to 1959, and a variety of staff positions during the 1960s. He retired from the navy in 1965, and he continued to be close to the British royal family; Charles, Prince of Wales was his grand-nephew.
Mountbatten's status as a member of the British royal family made him a target for its enemies. On 27 August 1979, IRA volunteer Thomas McMahon planted a radio-controlled bomb in his unprotected boat as he was moored off Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland, with Mountbatten having decided to go fishing with some family members. Mountbatten and his son-in-law's mother were killed in the explosion of the boat, and the IRA justified the assassination by saying that he was an influential member of the House of Lords, and that his death drew attention to the plight of the Irish people.
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