Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

Who was Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma?

Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS – known informally as Lord Mountbatten – was a British statesman and naval officer, an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin once removed to Elizabeth II. During World War II, he was Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command. He was the last Viceroy of India and the first Governor-General of the independent Dominion of India, from which the modern Republic of India was to emerge in 1950. From 1954 until 1959 he was First Sea Lord, a position that had been held by his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, some forty years earlier. Thereafter he served as Chief of the Defence Staff until 1965, making him the longest serving professional head of the British Armed Forces to date. During this period Mountbatten also served as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee for a year.

In 1979 Mountbatten, along with three other people, including a grandson Nicholas, was murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, who planted a bomb in his fishing boat, the Shadow V, at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in Ireland.