Lord Mountbatten cousin to a king sunk by German dive bombers
On this day in 1941 Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten second cousin of King George VI of Britain and the only man other than the king to hold rank in all three military services simultaneously is among those thrown into the Mediterranean Sea when his destroyer the HMS Kelly is sunk.Mountbattens ship was among several British cruisers destroyers and battleships sunk off Crete by German dive-bombers.The Kelly was attacked by 24 bombers alone 130 crewmembers were killed.Mountbatten was still on the bridge of the ship when it finally flipped over nevertheless he managed to swim to shore and take control of the rescue operation.
He would ultimately accept as senior Allied officer present the surrender of Japanese land forces within Southeast Asia by General Sieshiro Itagaki.Side note Just a day before the sinking of the Kelly the battleship Valiant was damaged but not sunk during an equally vicious German air attack also off Crete which succeeded in sinking two cruisers and four destroyers.Among the crewmen of the Valiant was Lord Mountbattens nephew Prince Philip of Greece.Mountbatten survived the terror of war against the Axis powers only to be killed by an Irish Republic Army bomb planted on his boat on August 26 1979.
