In August 1979, Mountbatten was assassinated by a bomb planted aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland, by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

[3] Mountbatten's maternal grandparents were Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, who was a daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Mountbatten attended Christ's College, Cambridge, for two terms, starting in October 1919, where he studied English literature (including John Milton and Lord Byron) in a programme designed to augment the education of junior officers which had been curtailed by the war.

[11] Pursuing his interests in technological development and gadgetry, Mountbatten joined the Portsmouth Signals School in August 1924 and then went on briefly to study electronics at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

[25] As commander of Combined Operations, Mountbatten and his staff planned the highly successful Bruneval raid, which gained important information and captured part of a German Würzburg radar installation and one of the machine's technicians on 27 February 1942.

[42] He was in large part responsible for the planning and organisation of the St Nazaire Raid on 28 March, which put out of action one of the most heavily defended docks in Nazi-occupied France until well after the war's end, the ramifications of which contributed to allied supremacy in the Battle of the Atlantic.

[32] His less practical ideas were sidelined by an experienced planning staff led by Lieutenant-Colonel James Allason, though some, such as a proposal to launch an amphibious assault near Rangoon, got as far as Churchill before being quashed.

[47] British interpreter Hugh Lunghi recounted an embarrassing episode during the Potsdam Conference when Mountbatten, desiring to receive an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, repeatedly attempted to impress Joseph Stalin with his former connections to the Russian imperial family.

[51] That year, he was made a Knight Companion of the Garter and created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, of Romsey in the County of Southampton, as a victory title for war service.

Mountbatten's instructions were to avoid partition and preserve a united India as a result of the transfer of power but authorised him to adapt to a changing situation in order to get Britain out promptly with minimal reputational damage.

[69] On one hand, the integration of the princely states can be viewed as one of the positive aspects of his legacy[70] but on the other, the refusal of Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, and Junagadh to join one of the dominions led to future wars between Pakistan and India.

[76] John Kenneth Galbraith, the Canadian-American Harvard University economist, who advised governments of India during the 1950s and was an intimate of Nehru who served as the American ambassador from 1961 to 1963, was a particularly harsh critic of Mountbatten in this regard.

The viceroy made several attempts to mediate between the Congress leaders, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Hari Singh on issues relating to the accession of Kashmir, though he was largely unsuccessful in resolving the conflict.

The Pakistani government, by contrast, lacked a positive view of Mountbatten for his perceived hostile attitude towards Pakistan and deemed him persona non grata, barring him from transiting their airspace during the same visit.

[92] Mountbatten served his final posting at the Admiralty as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from April 1955 to July 1959, the position which his father had held some forty years before.

[95][96][97] Despite his military rank, Mountbatten was ignorant as to the physics involved in a nuclear explosion and had to be reassured that the fission reactions from the Bikini Atoll tests would not spread through the oceans and blow up the planet.

[100] Ian Jacob, co-author of the 1963 Report on the Central Organisation of Defence that served as the basis of these reforms, described Mountbatten as "universally mistrusted in spite of his great qualities".

[109][110][111] In 1975 Mountbatten finally visited the Soviet Union, leading the delegation from UK as personal representative of Queen Elizabeth II at the celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary of Victory Day in Second World War in Moscow.

[112] Peter Wright, in his 1987 book Spycatcher, claimed that in May 1968 Mountbatten attended a private meeting with press baron Cecil King and the government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Solly Zuckerman.

[120] After Edwina died in 1960, Mountbatten was involved in relationships with young women, according to his daughter Patricia, his secretary John Barratt, his valet Bill Evans, and William Stadiem, an employee of Madame Claude.

[124] Andrew Lownie, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, wrote that the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintained files regarding Mountbatten's alleged homosexuality.

[142] Particular about details of dress, Mountbatten took an interest in fashion design, introducing trouser zips, a tail-coat with broad, high lapels and a "buttonless waistcoat" that could be pulled on over the head.

This was the first recorded meeting of Charles's future parents[149] but a few months later, Mountbatten's efforts nearly came to naught when he received a letter from his sister Alice in Athens informing him that Philip was visiting her and had agreed to repatriate permanently to Greece.

Within days, Philip received a command from his cousin and sovereign, King George II of Greece, to resume his naval career in Britain which, though given without explanation, the young prince obeyed.

[152] In 1969, a documentary consisting of 12 mini-series titled The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten which were presented by the latter, retraced his debut which crossed path which historical events of the century.

He was tried for the assassinations in Ireland and convicted on 23 November 1979 based on forensic evidence supplied by James O'Donovan that showed flecks of paint from the boat and traces of nitroglycerine on his clothes.

He was warm-hearted, predisposed to like everyone he met, quick-tempered but never bearing grudges ... His tolerance was extraordinary; his readiness to respect and listen to the views of others was remarkable throughout his life.Ziegler argues he was truly a great man, and despite being an executor of a policy, not initiator, he came to be known as its creator.

Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, the former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, once told him, "You are so crooked, Dickie, that if you swallowed a nail, you would shit a corkscrew".

Furthermore, Ziegler argues, he was following a practical policy based on the assumption that it would take a long and bloody struggle to drive the Japanese out, and he needed the support of all the anti-Japanese elements, most of which were either nationalists or communists.

[198] letters He was appointed personal aide-de-camp by Edward VIII, George VI[223] and Elizabeth II, and therefore bore the unusual distinction of being allowed to wear three royal cyphers on his epaulettes.