Mountbatten: Apprentice War Lord

Adrian Smith is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Southampton, with access to the Mountbatten papers within the Broadlands Archives. He has taught at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the University of Kent. An established author, broadcaster and journalist in the fields of modern British political, social and cultural history, his books include The City of Coventry: A Twentieth Century Icon (I.B.Tauris), Mick Mannock, Fighter Pilot: Myth, Life and Politics and The New Statesman: Portrait of a Political Weekly, 1913–1931. Mountbatten Apprentice War Lord Adrian Smith Published in 2010 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © 2010 Adrian Smith The right of Adrian Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978 1 84885 374 4 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham from camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author To Sean Greenwood, Colin Seymour-Ure, Graham Thomas, Derek Crabtree, and Peter Hennessy – with thanks Contents Illustrations Preface ix xi Part One: Dickie Mountbatten, Consul, Courtier, Charmer, and Chancer 1. Introduction 2. Lord Louis Mountbatten – A Royal Parvenu? 1 29 Part Two: Mountbatten at War, 1914–39 3. The First World War and the 1920s 4. Fast-tracking in the 1930s 55 77 Part Three: Mountbatten at War, Flotilla Captain 1939–41 5. HMS Kelly, 1939–40 6. HMS Kelly, 1941 103 137 Part Four: Mountbatten at War, Chief of Combined Operations 1941–43 7. From Adviser to Chief of Combined Operations, 1941–42 8. The Dieppe Raid, 19 August 1942 9. Dieppe – the Aftermath, the Inquest, and the Debate 10. ‘The steel hand from the sea’ – Combined Operations at its Zenith 11. Conclusion 163 193 231 257 289 Notes Bibliography and Filmography Index 309 363 377 Illustrations 1.1 HRH going native in Japan with Lord Louis and ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe, April 1922 2.1 The Kelly carries the Duke of Windsor home from France, 12–13 September 1939 2.2 The six-year-old Prince Louis Battenberg on parade in Gibraltar, 1906 2.3 ‘Bertie’ welcomes ‘David’ home, HMS Renown, 21 June 1922 3.1 Elder brother ‘Georgie’ on