Mountbatten

Adrian Smith is Senior Lecturer in History and Acting Director of the Centre for the Study of Britain and its Empire at the University of Southampton, with access to the Mountbatten papers at Southampton and the Broadlands Estate Archive. He has taught at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and the University of Kent. He is an established author, broadcaster and journalist on the political, social and cultural history of the 20th century, military history and biography. His books include City of Coventry: Twentieth Century Icon (I.B. Tauris), Sport and National Identity in the Postwar World (with Dilys Porter).

• PrefacePart One Dickie Mountbatten, consul, courtier, charmer and chancer1.Introduction2.Lord Louis Mountbatten - royal parvenue?Part Two Mountbatten at war, 1914-19393. The First World War and the 1920s 4. Fast-tracking in 1930sPart Three Mountbatten at war, Flotilla Captain 1939-415. HMS 'Kelly', 1939-1940 6. HMS 'Kelly' 1941 Part Four Mountbatten at war, Chief of Combined Operations 1941-437. From Adviser to Chief of Combined Operations 1941-28. The Dieppe Raid, 19 August 19429. Dieppe - the aftermath, the inquest and the debate10. 'The steel hand from sea' - Combined Operations at its zenith Conclusion

"'Lord Louis Mountbatten is one of the most glittering yet mercurial figures of twentieth-century British history. Nobody was neutral about him. For some he was a far-sighted hero; for others he was an intellectual charlatan and a chancer. Adrian Smith gets us very close to the real Lord Louis, and the time is right for a reappraisal of his extraordinary trajectory across military, public and political life.' - Professor Peter Henessy, Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History, Queen Mary College, University of London"