The Mountbattens

by Andrew Lownie

  Dickie knew his time at Combined Operations was probably coming to an end soon, as others were brought in to command the larger planned invasions. He took every opportunity on board ship to press Dudley Pound for a date when he might return to sea. What he had not realised was that Churchill had other plans for him.

  CHAPTER 14

  Supremo

  Mountbatten had first been suggested for the post of Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia by Leo Amery in May 1943, but concerns about his health – he had only just taken a month off work with pneumonia – and that ‘he was not big enough’ meant the suggestion was ignored.310 It was only American pressure and Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell’s poor working relationship with the American commander of the Chinese armies in Burma, General Joe Stilwell, that persuaded Churchill to change his mind. The job of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe had to go to an American – as the United States was contributing the majority of troops – much to General Sir Alan Brooke’s disappointment as he had been promised the job. In return it was agreed that the South East Asian post should be filled by the British.

  The first choice had been Air Chief Marshal Sholto Douglas, head of RAF Middle East Command, but he was vetoed by Roosevelt. The American Chiefs of Staff had then suggested Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, but it was felt he could not be moved from his command in the Mediterranean. Sir Andrew Cunningham, commanding the Mediterranean Fleet, was next on the list, but he turned it down, keen to be appointed First Sea Lord instead. Six other Service chiefs were put forward and rejected. In the absence of any other obvious candidates, Mountbatten’s name was again put forward and enthusiastically approved by the Americans, though there were still doubts amongst those who had worked with him closely. ‘He will require a very efficient Chief of Staff to pull him through!’ wrote Brooke waspishly in his diary.311

  That Chief of Staff was to be Henry Pownall, formerly Chief of Staff to Archibald Wavell and presently C-in-C in Persia. Pownall had no illusions about the task that faced him:

  Mountbatten, aged 43, will certainly have all the necessary drive and initiative to conduct this war. The difficulty will be to restrain him, or rather to direct his energies into really useful directions and away from minor details. He throws out brainwaves daily, some of them very good too, but not always timely. And he is obviously rather volatile. Most of his staff have already confided this to me, for they obviously rely on me to keep him on the rails, which won’t be too easy. He also shows a distinct tendency towards creating a staff organisation which shall have places where his trusted colleagues and friends can fit in. Hardly the right way to go about it but I suppose Patronage, with a big P, is bound to be an element of the Blood Royal.312

  With his experience of amphibious operations and on the Chiefs of Staff Committee, his ability to work with international forces, his close working relationships with the Americans, his energy and imagination and his diplomatic and public relations skills – Mountbatten was an inspired choice. Given the problems of jungle warfare, many of the military operations would have to be amphibious and here his Combined Operation experience would be invaluable.

  Mountbatten knew he was not the first choice and it would not be easy, but he was delighted, writing to Churchill, ‘I have never really thanked you properly for giving me the finest chance any young man has ever been given in war.’313 To Edwina he was more open:

  I really don’t know how I will be able to do this job without you. I’ve got so used to leaning on you and hearing your brutally frank but well-deserved criticism. But above all you have been such a help with all the people I have to deal with . . . Wouldn’t it be romantic to live together in the place we got engaged in, and in a job which is really more important in the war than our host’s was . . . Please don’t think I underestimate the importance of your job – I am just being a very selfish husband who would like to have his wife with him!314

  In October 1943, Dickie left from Northolt for South East Asia, seen off by Patricia. As this was Bunny’s last weekend at Broadlands, Edwina did not come to the airport to say goodbye.

  The situation in South East Asia was dire. The Japanese had overrun the region as far as the India–Burma border and were menacing India itself. Mountbatten’s orders were to defend India, drive the Japanese out of Burma and Malaya, and reopen land communications with China. His command stretched over sea, land and air to include Burma, Ceylon, Siam, the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, but the chain of command had been left vague. Was Mountbatten simply chairing a collegial body of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, like Eisenhower in the Mediterranean, or was he, like the American General Douglas MaCarthur in the Pacific, the Supremo with his own planning staff able to direct his commanders-in-chief?

  For example, he had no control over the American 10th Air Force, until granted at the Cairo Conference in November, and Sir James Somerville, the C-in-C Eastern Fleet, was responsible for the protection of trade routes in the Indian Ocean, except when Mountbatten needed the ships for specific operations. This, together with childish squabbles regarding permissions to visit ships, was to be a source of constant friction until a truce was brokered by Charles Lambe.

  ‘Supreme Commander means just that,’ Pownall wrote in his diary shortly after Mountbatten arrived. ‘He is not just the chairman of a committee.’315 Perhaps, but in practice he had three powerful commanders-in-chief who were used to exercising power and were not going to surrender it easily, especially to someone younger and hitherto more junior.

  Mountbatten arrived on 6 October and installed himself in Faridkot House, a maharaja’s palace in New Delhi, where he immediately evicted the Naval and Army staffs to create room for his own expanding staff. It was a portent of what was to come. Many of the criticisms directed at him at COHQ followed him to SEAC. By December, Sir James Somerville, C-in-C Easter Fleet, was complaining to General Ismay that ‘the machine has run away and is gathering momentum daily’.316

  By December the staff had grown to 4,700. ‘Dickie insists on duplicating everything. It’s clear he wishes to have absolute control of everything in this theatre,’ wrote Somerville to Ismay.

  I had a long talk with him yesterday about this . . . I admired intensely his enormous drive, grasp of facts and application, but that my brother C-in-Cs were most deeply concerned at what was taking place . . . He has great drive, personality and imagination but here lacks balance and is a most wishful thinker.317

  There were the old complaints of chums being given posts. Amongst those brought out from COHQ were Micky Hodges and Peter Murphy, whilst the appointment of Johnny Papps, a former banqueting manager at the Dorchester Hotel, raised some eyebrows.

  Mountbatten quickly built up an appreciation of the situation, discovering that advancing British forces constantly had to fall back to protect supply lines from Japanese troops, and air supply was hampered by lack of transport aircraft. He identified as his priorities morale, malaria and monsoon, of which the most important was restoring morale. ‘I hear you call this the Forgotten Front. I hear you call yourselves the Forgotten Army,’ he would tell them. ‘Well, let me tell you that this is not the Forgotten Front, and you are not the Forgotten Army. In fact, nobody has even heard of you. But they will hear of you, because this is what we are going to do.’318

  He made constant visits to the front line and hospitals, sometimes travelling hundreds of miles over mud tracks in his jeep with only two members of staff. Troops might not believe the visits were as spontaneous or unrehearsed as Mountbatten let them believe, that his stock phrases in the languages of his command were not learnt by heart, but it showed he cared. A newspaper, SEAC, with the former editor of the Evening Standard, Frank Owen, was set up together with Radio SEAC. SEAC news stories now appeared in the British press, and film showings were introduced. More mobile bath units were created, postal and leave arrangements extended and a programme of visits to the troops introduced. One of those to come out was Noël Coward.

  Mountbatten lobbied Eden t
o create ‘a political post within the Government, for the sole purpose of directing Far Eastern affairs’.319 A brand logo was created of a phoenix, a symbol of rebirth, which the men soon dubbed ‘pig’s arse’. When General Ronald Adam inspected the command the following year, he was able to write, ‘I can confirm the very high morale of your Army. In fact, I have not seen higher morale anywhere.’320

  This improved publicity also served his own ends. Ralph Arnold, who handled Dickie’s PR, remembered how:

  Supremo’s intense interest in everything to do with PR could be a bit awkward. As a start he took a keen interest in his own personal publicity, and made no bones about it . . . Too much, or the wrong kind of publicity, embarrassed and annoyed him. Too little upset him. It was difficult to achieve the happy mean.321

  In 1943, there were 120 sick for every battle casualty, mainly malaria, but also dysentery and other tropical diseases. By the following year it was 20 and in 1945 it was 10. Put another way, the number of men with malaria fell from 84 per cent to 13 per cent between 1943 and 1945. This rapid improvement in public health was achieved by introducing new techniques, drugs and methods of treatment and importing some 700 nurses, which Edwina had arranged in London. It meant his troop strengths were almost immediately multiplied. The battles with morale and malaria won, the third factor could be addressed. Hitherto there had been no fighting through the five months of the monsoon, May to October. Mountbatten decided that henceforth they would fight, giving the Allies the benefit of surprise and speeding up campaigns.

  Henry Pownall provides a useful snapshot six weeks after his arrival:

  The pace is pretty hot for Mountbatten gives neither himself, nor his staff, time for relaxation. His active mind is perpetually at work. Very often his push and drive are used in useful directions. But not always and he is apt to put urgency into matters which are not the least urgent, or subjects which ought to be carefully considered. He causes, too, quite a lot of unnecessary work by not consulting his staff, or asking how things stand from the staff officer concerned, before pushing out a Personal Minute on a subject on which he is not fully informed – because he has not asked for the information. But with all that, his energy and drive are most admirable features; for so young a man his knowledge is extremely good; his mind receptive; his experience of two years on the C.O.S. Committee stand him in admirable stead; he has a most attractive personality; and his judgement is good when things are put fairly and squarely to him. He doesn’t always allow time for that latter item to happen.322

  Though China was not in Mountbatten’s command, it was to play an important role in his time at SEAC. China and Japan had been at war for seven years by 1943. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek controlled the central and southern provinces, with the Communists in control in the north. The Americans were determined to keep China in the war, as they added to the pressure on Japan in the region. This put Mountbatten in a difficult position as British policy was to recapture Burma, Malaya and Singapore, whilst the Americans, who supplied most of the resources, were only involved in the region as a means of supporting China. They had no wish to help SEAC – Save England’s Asian Colonies.323

  General Joe Stilwell, who was Mountbatten’s Deputy Supreme Commander, was also the Chief of Staff to Chiang Kai-shek and commander of the Chinese troops in Burma and Assam with the responsibility of protecting Chinese interests. Already there was an inbuilt tension in his responsibilities, which were exacerbated by his directness, anti-British sentiment, his refusal to serve under General Giffard, the British Commander-in-Chief, and his plotting behind Mountbatten’s back. At the same time Chiang Kai-shek, nicknamed ‘Cash My-check’, simply wanted to maximise aid from both the British and the Americans, and had no hesitation in playing them off against each other. It did not make for an easy life for Mountbatten.

  ‘The Glamour Boy is just that,’ wrote Stilwell in January 1944. ‘He doesn’t wear well and I begin to wonder if he knows his stuff. Enormous staff, endless walla-walla but damn little fighting.’324

  The fighting was to come the following month with a Japanese attack on the ‘Administrative Box’, where large stocks of war stores had been established on the Arakan Front. Encircled, the British troops held on for 18 days, supplied by American aircraft diverted from supplying Chinese forces, and it was the Japanese who had to retreat. This first British victory was to be the turning point of the Burma Campaign.

  The next month the Japanese counter-attacked the British supply bases on the Imphal Plain, just as Mountbatten was himself hors de combat. On 7 March, whilst driving his jeep, a bamboo stump had flicked into his face, damaging his left eye. For five days, whilst the battle raged, he was completely blind with both eyes bandaged, and he was not allowed to move his head or lie on his side. Nurses worked eight-hour shifts feeding, washing and reading to him until, at risk of losing the sight of his left eye, he ignored the doctor’s protests and discharged himself.

  Meanwhile at Kohima the garrison of 2,500, mainly non-combatants, had been surrounded by 15,000 Japanese troops. Between 5 and 18 April it saw some of the fiercest close-quarter fighting of the war and, at one point, the two sides were separated only by a tennis court. Eventually, the Allies’ air superiority and reinforcements of an infantry division in 30 American transport aircraft (which Mountbatten had commandeered off the China supply route) meant the Japanese were finally on the retreat.

  * * *

  Mountbatten found life as Supreme Allied Commander lonely, as Peter Murphy had returned to London and Bunny Phillips was going back to Washington. ‘The Rabbit and I parted very nearly in tears’, Dickie wrote to Edwina; ‘. . . we used to ride together every evening when I could get away & used to talk & talk & talk. I always thought I’d get to like him very much once I really knew him & when he was with us you will agree that I didn’t get much chance of seeing him alone!!’325

  He wished she could join him and complained his hair was ‘visibly greyer’ and ‘my middle-aged spread is increasing. I get tired fairly easily . . .’326 She tried to reassure him, but his spirits were often low. There were continuing criticisms of his empire building, especially after he moved his headquarters to Ceylon and the imposing King’s Pavilion at Kandy, formerly the governor’s residence. By February 1944, his staff had risen to 7,000 and, soon after, was nearer 10,000. This, together with the galaxy of flags on the bonnet of his jeep, was all part of the showmanship – but it made him few friends.

  ‘Dickie has many great qualities – indefatigable energy, great drive and lots of moral and physical courage,’ wrote Ismay to General Claude Auchinleck, the C-in-C India, ‘but there’s an undue amount of ego in his cosmos and tact is not exactly his strong suit.’

  I warned him not once but several times of the folly of setting up a huge staff and implored him not to repeat the mistake he had made as CCO (where incidentally he did a damn fine job of work); he in this respect is incorrigible. I also told him to lay off publicity as much as possible – until he has a victory or two to his credit. But here again my advice seems to have fallen on deaf ears. There doesn’t seem to be much good in making mistakes, unless one is prepared to profit by them.327

  There were also criticisms of the louche atmosphere. Mountbatten liked to be surrounded by beautiful women and both COHQ and the headquarters at SEAC were renowned for the glamorous female staff and relaxed atmosphere. General Oliver Leese was shocked when he arrived and was taken to a dance at the officers’ club to see a pretty Wren kissing Mountbatten passionately. He wrote to his wife about the party, ‘it was gay and full of life – full enough of drink – and very odd. Most girls were U’s [Mountbatten’s] and other secretaries and they seemed to spend their time sitting on the arms of U and others’ chairs’.328

  One of those women was Sally Dean, then in her early twenties, whom he described as ‘my favourite and prettiest American signal officer’.329 Dean had been brought up in France and Jersey and, after the outbreak of the war, briefly worked in the American
Hospital of Paris, before dramatically escaping and enlisting in the Women’s Army Corps and being posted to SEAC.

  However, the person with whom Mountbatten had truly fallen in love was Janey Lindsay. Beautiful, tall, blonde, elegant, fluent in French and German, she had come out to join Mountbatten’s personal staff at the end of 1943. The granddaughter of the Duke of Abercorn, her closest friend had been John F. Kennedy’s sister, Kick Kennedy, and both Kennedy and the actor David Niven had been suitors. Her three-year-old marriage to Colonel Peter Lindsay, a colonel in Force 136 – the South East Asian equivalent of SOE – was already in difficulties, and she and Dickie were immediately attracted to each other. It was an affair that was to last until the end of his time in South East Asia and continue as a friendship until his death. He was later to write to her:

  It was a true godsend when I found you in Delhi and asked you to dinner in Faridkot House. At the time in the Purdah Court, the moment I touched your hand and you squeezed mine in return a new private life opened up for me in which I could throw off all worries and responsibilities and recuperate in your unfailing love. In two years we never really had an angry word. The week-ends we were able to go up to my bungalow – our bungalow – at Dimbula were sheer heaven and however utterly exhausted I was I always went back refreshed and full of courage.

  He and Bunny had attended a Christmas Eve party at her bungalow at Meerut, where Mountbatten remembered:

  We sat till the small hours of the morning playing the gramophone and telling stories. I had never realised what a relief it was to get away from one’s staff, however much one likes them, and go to a private house and spend an evening with friends of one’s own set.330