Description
Viscount Mountbatten of Burma was one of the more interesting and controversial figures of World War II and British 20th-century history, and certainly did an excellent job of promoting himself both professionally and in the public eye. He started the war commanding a destroyer and finished up as Supreme Commander of Southeast Asia. Some of his work was outstanding, some of it set the Allies back. He owed much of his success to royal connections, good looks, and marrying well.
However, in the end, his leadership in the difficult tasks of creating combined operations techniques, liberating Burma, and winding up British rule in India were outstanding work, and he remained in the front rank of British postwar military leadership until his retirement in the 1960s, and a beloved figure and symbol of that leadership until his horrific death at the hands of Irish terrorists in 1979.
The capable historian and journalist Arthur Swinson tackles Mountbatten’s life with considerable effectiveness and some good prose, going from his Victorian birth to his 1950s and 1960s service. Swinson is supportive of and respectful towards Mountbatten, seeing his qualities as stronger than his negatives, impressed by his personal leadership, particularly when his destroyer, HMS Kelly, was sunk off Crete, by German dive-bombers.
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