| Biography | Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG GCB OM GCSI GCIE GCVO DSO PC FRS (born Prince Louis of Battenberg; 25 June 1900 27 August 1979) 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. He was the last Viceroy of India (1947) and the first Governor-General of the independent Union of India (194748), from which the modern Republic of India emerged in 1950. From 1954 until 1959 he was the 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 assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who planted a bomb in his fishing boat, the Shadow V, at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in Ireland. |