The Mountbattens

by Andrew Lownie

  On 3 September, war was declared. It would prove to be the making of both Dickie and Edwina.

  CHAPTER 11

  At War

  Just before the outbreak of war, Dickie took command of his new ship, HMS Kelly – the first of the new ‘K’ class destroyers armed with six 4.7-inch guns and two quintuple torpedo tubes – and one that had been fitted out to his exact specifications, taking into account some of the designs he had discussed with the naval architect A.P. Cole. A particular feature was his cabin, a replica of his mock cabin at the Brook House penthouse, ‘a large L-shaped room with a long desk equipped with a dictaphone and a multiplicity of gadgets along the end wall, or bulkhead . . . The walls of the cabin were pale green, the sofa and chairs covered with bright orange-and brick material, the carpet brown. An adjoining sleeping cabin and bathroom were decorated in the same pale green.’248 On the bookcase were photographs of his father, brother, wife, daughters, Jean Norton and Yola Letellier.

  The ship was still being prepared when in August the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact was signed, and arrangements for loading had to be quickened from three weeks to three days. The entire ship’s company, including its captain, worked day and night, bringing on stores, fuel and ammunition, and painting the boat in a mixture of rose and lavender, called Mountbatten Pink, which Dickie thought best disguised its appearance from the air.249

  War was declared on 3 September. Dickie, waiting for instructions in Portsmouth, was apprehensive. ‘It is only when one faces the prospect of death,’ he wrote to Edwina, ‘that one realises how much one’s loved ones mean.’250 His first wartime duty was to collect his old friend Edward, Duke of Windsor, from exile in France, accompanied by Randolph Churchill in the uniform of a lieutenant of the 4th Hussars – the appearance slightly spoilt by the spurs being inside out and upside down.

  Over the next few weeks the Kelly was engaged on convoy duties in the Channel and chasing U-boats – most of them, it transpired, imaginary – west of the Scillies. Then towards the end of October, Mountbatten was ordered to the Norwegian coast to engage the German pocket battleship Deutschland and pick up some captured merchant seamen from the City of Flint. He pointedly ignored the advice of his signals and navigating officers, plotting a course that left him missing the German pocket battleship. ‘It is absolutely basic that in any intercepting situation like this you go to the position furthest on your target could have reached, and then work back,’ the Kelly’s signals officer, Edward Dunsterville, recollected. ‘But Mountbatten would have none of this. He wanted to make a splash.’251 The result was that 600 seamen spent five years in a German internment camp.

  Returning, Mountbatten set a cruising speed of 28 knots, twice the safe rate given the weather conditions, leading to a seaman being swept overboard and the destruction of the starboard side when the Kelly hit a huge wave. Shortly after repairs were completed, he hit a mine after being ordered into the middle of a minefield in the Tyne Estuary to rescue a sinking British tanker. Kelly returned to dry dock for almost three months of repairs. It was ten days before Christmas and most men had used up their spare passes. Edwina offered to pay the return fares of any crew member who wished to go home for Christmas.

  The episode was to provide one of the stories that would become part of the Mountbatten legend. All on board had felt the mine bumping under the bow, engine-room and ward room before it went off after touching the propellers. It had been too much for one of the stokers, who had deserted his post. The punishment for desertion was death but Mountbatten, addressing the lower deck, let the man off with a caution. ‘One caution to him, and second one to myself, for having failed in four months to impress my personality and doctrine on each and all of you to prevent such an incident from occurring.’252 No member of the Kelly crew ever again left their post and the stoker later won a gallantry medal.

  In March, within a week of the repairs on the Kelly being completed, it collided with another destroyer, HMS Gurkha, requiring a further refit of six weeks. The following month it was despatched to embark the retreating forces in Norway and successfully rescued 229 French Chasseurs Alpins – its first useful contribution to the war effort in six months.

  In May, Mountbatten first found himself isolated off the Dutch coast, fruitlessly chasing a U-boat, and then needlessly broadcasting his position by signalling with a bright Aldis light; one message read: ‘How are the muskets? Let battle commence.’ The immediate result was the Kelly was torpedoed, blasting a 50-foot hole in the starboard side, killing 27 and wounding many more but, though heavily damaged and with only emergency lighting, she had survived. All but six officers and 12 men were taken off, the torpedoes, depth charges, surplus ammunition and boats jettisoned, and the Kelly began its tortuous 91-hour journey across the North Sea to the Tyne, towed back in spite of considerable risk to the support vessels. It had been a feat of foolhardiness, but also courage and seamanship.

  For most officers, it would have led to a court martial, but the heroic journey back had caught the imagination of the public looking for good news amidst the rapid German victories. It had not been calculated – Mountbatten simply wanted to save his ship – but it proved a morale-boosting propaganda coup. The Navy, seeing an opportunity, leaked the story to the Daily Mirror, whose centre-page spread paid tribute with plenty of references to Nelson and ‘an epic story that will live for ever in British naval history’.253

  Dickie, given a mention in Despatches, now lobbied hard through his royal connections – he had told George VI about his feat immediately when he returned – and Edwina for a Distinguished Service Order for bringing his ship home safely. In spite of Service objections to an award being given, when it was Mountbatten’s stupidity that had caused Kelly to be attacked in the first place, his lobbying paid off. The naval action had also brought him to the attention of the man who would be his most important wartime mentor – the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

  * * *

  The war had brought the Mountbattens together, not least by giving new purpose to the rather aimless life that Edwina had hitherto been leading. ‘I can never tell you what fun it has been,’ Dickie told her in October 1939 after her fourth visit in six weeks, ‘. . . it has taken the war to realise all that you do mean to me – so at all events I have Hitler to thank for that.’254 She gave him presents of a small gold identification disc, a kitten, and a scarf she had knitted herself, and sent clean clothes and food. This was the sort of tender affection that Dickie had longed for. ‘We have had our ups and downs in our 17 years of married life,’ he wrote, ‘but I wouldn’t marry anyone else if I had all my life over again – I can’t say more.’255

  There were also worries about Patricia and Pamela. With fear of German invasion, what would their fate be given their Jewish background and Dickie’s royal relations? Edwina made plans to hire a skipper and some deckhands and sail to America via Madeira, until common sense prevailed – she booked them on a ship for New York with arrangements to stay with the Vanderbilts on Fifth Avenue.

  Edwina had been trying to make her own contribution to the war effort, but no one wanted her. In turn, she was rejected by the Women’s Royal Naval Service, the Women’s Voluntary Service and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, who remembered her pre-war, little-rich-girl-lost reputation. Eventually, in December 1939 she was interviewed by the Red Cross and the Order of St John, and the next month appointed Lady County President of the Nursing Division of London.

  Edwina now threw herself into war work. In the autumn of 1940, she took a two-week Intensive First Aid Course and spent a month training on the wards at Westminster Hospital. Noticing the lack of coordinated organisation at the First Aid Posts at the shelters and in the Underground, she lobbied government ministers until proper arrangements were made. Now responsible for all St John Ambulance volunteers working in Rest Centres, Shelters and First Aid Posts, each night – oblivious to all dangers – she would set off in her car on a tour of inspection, so each shelter was visited at
least once a fortnight.

  ‘Did you hear of Edwina’s exciting adventure with a time bomb that went off within 20 or 30 yards of her,’ Dickie wrote to his mother in September. ‘It knocked her down but her very closeness saved her as the fragments all passed over her head.’256 Each morning would be spent organising the Nursing Flying Squad and interviewing prospective VADS, and afternoons at the Knitted Garments Depot.

  She had learnt from her husband the importance of appearance and glamour. Her heels were higher, her hat worn at a jauntier angle and she had her uniforms specially tailored so that her skirts were shorter than those of her colleagues, and the jackets tighter-fitting. With her slim figure, high cheekbones and huge blue eyes, she looked more like a film star than a charity worker. More importantly, she rapidly demonstrated she could get things done. She was conscientious, hard-working and popular and, by January 1941, she was Acting Lady Deputy District Superintendent, only two places from the top position.

  The couple were in unison, perhaps for the first time ever. Pressure brought out the best in them – their gifts of leadership, their organisational skills, their ability to use their connections, their meticulous preparation and command of their brief. Edwina had learned from her husband the self-respect that comes from working hard, indeed her equally competitive nature wished to outdo him. She would stay up later with paperwork, and drive herself harder in her daily tasks, to prove both to herself and to him that she could compete on equal terms. Her intelligence was at last being used.

  Their increased closeness did not mean that the relationship was perfect. Edwina still found Dickie infuriating, self-obsessed and immature, but also increasingly recognised his affection and bravery. That said, she continued to see Hutch. In September, she joined the singer when he performed for the inmates of Dartmoor Prison at the end of a tour in Torbay. Mairi Craven standing outside remembered admiring a huge gleaming black car attended by a chauffeur, when Hutch swept through the gates, arm in arm with Edwina, ‘looking beautiful, smiling, elegant and wearing a bandeau. A murmur ran through the wondering assembly. “It’s Lady Louis”.’257

  Neither was the relationship with Bunny over, though he had told Dickie that Edwina did not enjoy love-making. It appears that many of her affairs had been as much about asserting herself as about sexual frustration or high sexual drive.

  * * *

  In October 1940, Dickie was posted to Plymouth. The following month, whilst patrolling near Land’s End, he blundered again and his ship HMS Javelin was torpedoed with the loss of 46 men and many injured. Dickie was heavily criticised by his superiors for failing to organise his attacking force correctly and open fire in time, but no action was taken. Here was a high-profile naval hero, whose supporters included the King and the Prime Minister.258 The action had indeed caught the attention of Churchill, who summoned Dickie to Chequers, and offered him the post of Vice Chief of the Naval Staff, a huge promotion, with the intention he should become First Sea Lord later in the war. Mountbatten refused, saying he preferred to remain at sea.259

  In May 1941, the Kelly was sent to Crete to bombard the airfield, which had been captured by the Germans. At dawn on 23 May, the ship was dive-bombed by Stukas and, still travelling at 30 knots, capsized.260 The last view anyone had of Mountbatten, the first and last captain of the ship, was him standing on the bridge holding onto his Station-Keeping Gear. Edwina, knowing half the ship’s company had been lost, anxiously waited for news of her husband’s fate at Claridge’s with Peter Murphy.

  Picked up by HMS Kipling, Mountbatten was brought back to Alexandria, where he stayed for a few days with the Commanderin-Chief, Mediterranean, Andrew Cunningham, who was not a great fan. ‘The trouble with your flotilla, boy,’ he told another destroyer officer, ‘is that it was thoroughly badly led.’261 Many felt the problem with Mountbatten was that, for all his bravery and leadership abilities, he lacked judgement and patience, and was too much the showman where style triumphed over substance.

  Johnnie Coote remembered the Kelly as ‘the laughing-stock of the fleet’ entering Scapa Flow:

  She looked magnificent, with her pendants streaming from her halyards, everything properly squared away, with her flamboyant CO prominently saluting as his piping party of four (usually one or two in wartime) sounded off. She was making 25 knots at the time. Her wash bashed all our boats against our armoured belt, doing some damage . . . MB had deliberately chosen 0900 as his ETA so as to be the focus of attention of every Flag and Commanding Officer in the Home Fleet. An hour earlier it would have been dark.262

  In the autumn of 1941, Dickie was given command of the aircraft carrier Illustrious, currently under repair in Norfolk, Virginia, and ready to join the Mediterranean Fleet in November. The plan, supported by the Ministry of Information, was that he should go out in August, brief the American military, make some useful contacts and, as a well-connected and well-known naval officer, possibly help on the propaganda front. The couple saw it as an ideal opportunity to see their children, and Edwina also arranged to visit the States on a goodwill tour for the Joint War Organisation Committee, thanking organisations who had contributed to war charities and trying to rustle up more funds.

  Edwina’s tour of 28 states was a success, with lunches for up to 1,000 and scores of talks and visits across the country, including lunch with the Roosevelts at the White House. It was on this trip that the pattern was set for future tours – to test herself constantly by pushing herself to her limits. Partly this was a determination to cover as much ground as possible, to demonstrate, not least to her husband, what she could achieve; but there was also an element of punishment – a feeling she needed to make up for all those lost years of frivolity.

  Initially nervous about public speaking, she discovered that she could be an effective speaker, after learning the speech by heart. Many Americans, embarrassed by their neutrality, were anxious to help. It had not all been work. She had seen more of Pamela and Patricia than probably at any time of their lives, also lunched with Salvador Dalí who had painted her five years before, and had a few days away with Bunny, who was now working for British Security Coordination in New York.

  From the States she left for Canada, where she gave several speeches in French and stayed at Government House with Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, who told Queen Mary, her sister-in-law, that Edwina was a changed woman:

  I think that she is a hard worker and clever, tho’ one always feels that she has a hard streak in her character. But she certainly charmed everyone here and was more than nice with all the Old Trouts. This war has brought out a lot of good in all kinds of people one imagined merely butterflies and selfish ones at that.263

  ‘I personally feel closer to you now than at any time during the previous ten or twelve years,’ Dickie wrote to Edwina in Canada. ‘I have been so immensely proud of the really wonderful show you have put up here and know that all the family – not only Mama but the King and Queen and George etc – will all be equally proud of all you have done when I tell them.’264

  There was praise too for Dickie, who made good use of the connections throughout his career. Writing to the First Sea Lord, Harold Stark, the American Chief of Naval Operations confirmed the need for closer cooperation between the two navies. Mountbatten had been:

  outstandingly helpful in every way . . . His knowledge of his profession, his keen observation of our methods, his frank statements of his thoughts of them, his telling us of the British Navy methods and comparisons with our own, his sincerity, frankness and honesty have not only won our liking but our deep respect.265

  Dickie too travelled widely, staying with Douglas Fairbanks in California, dining with Norma Shearer and dancing with Rita Hayworth (whilst ostensibly thanking the studio heads for making films available free to the Royal Naval Film Corporation). He paid a visit to the American Fleet at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, where he was appalled by the vulnerability of the rows of aircraft parked beside the runway, the weak anti-aircraft defence, and the vu
lnerability of the ships and communication lines to an airborne attack. The Americans were implementing some of his suggestions when the Japanese attacked only eight weeks later.

  Dickie had expected to stay in America until November, when he would sail back in Illustrious but, suddenly, on 7 October, he was summoned to the British Embassy in Washington and told he had a new job.

  CHAPTER 12

  Combined Operations

  Combined Operations had been formed in July 1940 under Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes to plan amphibious operations against the Germans. Keyes had already organised a few raids on the French coast and was training some 5,000 men in ten commandos, but his reporting responsibilities had been left vague. Was he responsible directly to Churchill as Minister of Defence, or to the Chiefs of Staff? The tensions between him and the Chiefs of Staff had come to a head in the autumn of 1941, when he was dismissed. It was clear a much younger, more dynamic leader was required – Keyes was almost 70 – with fresh ideas.

  Mountbatten’s principal task as the new head of Combined Operations was to prepare for the invasion of France, organise training areas and troops, develop weaponry and select an invasion site. As part of that preparation, he was to conduct a series of morale-boosting small raids to probe defences, destroy or capture key facilities and harass the enemy, and advise on larger raids under the control of the Chiefs of Staff. He also attended Chiefs of Staff meetings as ‘technical adviser’ when Combined Operations was on the agenda.