Mountbatten: Hero or Villain?

Overview

When Louis Mountbatten, the Queen's cousin and Prince Philip's uncle, was murdered by the IRA in 1979 he was lauded as a war hero, an elder statesman and a much-loved member of the royal family. But did the public perception disguise the truth? As a military leader he was responsible for significant loss of life, while as a statesman he was responsible for the badly planned and poorly executed partition of India, which still has repercussions today.