In June 1917, when the Royal Family stopped using their German names and titles and adopted the more British-sounding " Windsor ": Prince Louis of Battenberg became Louis Mountbatten, and was created Marquess of Milford Haven.

Mountbatten became a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers ( IEE ), now the Institution of Engineering and Technology ( IET ), which annually awards the Mountbatten Medal for an outstanding contribution, or contributions over a period, to the promotion of electronics or information technology and their application.

When war broke out in 1939, Mountbatten became commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla aboard his ship Kelly, which was famous for its many daring exploits.

Mountbatten making an address in Singapore, 1945. As a result of the Dieppe raid, Mountbatten became a controversial figure in Canada, with the Royal Canadian Legion distancing itself from him during his visits there during his later career ; his relations with Canadian veterans " remained frosty ".

Mountbatten arrives on board HMS Glasgow at Malta to assume command of the Mediterranean Fleet, 16 May 1952After India, Mountbatten served as commander of the 1st cruiser squadron in the Mediterranean Fleet and, having been granted the substantive rank of vice admiral on 22 June 1949, he became Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet in April 1950.

This became evident when Mountbatten had to be reassured that the fission reactions from the Bikini Atoll tests would not spread through the oceans and blow up the planet.

From 1967 until 1978, Mountbatten became president of the United World Colleges Organisation, then represented by a single college: that of Atlantic College in South Wales.

On 27 April 1977, shortly before his 77th birthday, Mountbatten became the first member of the Royal Family to appear on the TV guest show This Is Your Life.

On the day Mountbatten was assassinated the IRA ambushed and killed eighteen British Army soldiers, sixteen of them from the Parachute Regiment at Warrenpoint, County Down, in what became known as the Warrenpoint ambush.

While on a fund-raising tour of the United States in October 1979 on behalf of the Royal Opera House, Margaret became embroiled in a controversy following the assassination of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

Prior to the official engagement announcement, he abandoned his Greek and Danish royal titles, converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Anglicanism, and became a naturalised British subject, adopting the surname Mountbatten from his British maternal grandparents.

In India, he became an intimate of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and extensively advised the Indian government on economic matters ; he harshly criticised Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of British rule, for Mountbatten's passive role in the Partition of India in 1947 and the bloody partition of Punjab and Bengal.

The Earl Mountbatten of Burma and The Princess Royal have since held this position, and in 2010 Prince William became the newest Academy president.

Soon after Elizabeth became queen of the Commonwealth realms in 1952, the Earl Mountbatten ( as Philip's uncle was then known ) advocated that she change the name of her royal house to House of Mountbatten ; it was the standard practice for the wife in a marriage to adopt her husband's surname.

George VI continued to hold the title King of India for two years during the short Governor-Generalships of Lord Mountbatten and of C. Rajagopalachari, until India became a republic on 26 January 1950.

Once in office, Mountbatten quickly became aware if Britain were to avoid involvement in a civil war, which seemed increasingly likely, there was no alternative to partition and a hasty exit from India.

A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy.

Lady Brabourne ), who became the Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who asked that the men and women of her regiment discount her titles and refer to her in honour of her predecessor as Lady Patricia.

His children resided in the United Kingdom and became lords and ladies with the surname Mountbatten in 1917 ( see " Name change " below ).

Mountbatten was a favourite of Winston Churchill, ( although after 1948 Churchill never spoke to him again since he was famously annoyed with Mountbatten's later role in the independence of India and Pakistan ), and on 27 October 1941 Mountbatten replaced Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations and received promotion to commodore.

In August 1943, Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command ( SEAC ) with promotion to the acting rank of full admiral.

South East Asia Command was disbanded in May 1946 and Mountbatten returned home with the substantive rank of rear-admiral.

Gandhi with Lord and Lady Mountbatten, 1947Given the British government's recommendations to grant independence quickly, Mountbatten concluded that a united India was an unachievable goal and resigned himself to a plan for partition, creating the independent nations of India and Pakistan.

Mountbatten also developed a strong relationship with the Indian princes, who ruled those portions of India not directly under British rule.

Lord Mountbatten with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru the first Prime Minister of sovereign India in Government House, Lady Mountbatten standing to their left. When India and Pakistan attained independence on 15 August 1947, Mountbatten remained in New Delhi for ten months, serving as India's first governor general until June 1948.

Lord and Lady Mountbatten with Muhammad Ali JinnahNotwithstanding the self-promotion of his own part in Indian independence — notably in the television series The Life and Times of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma, produced by his son-in-law Lord Brabourne and Dominique Lapierre, and Larry Collins's Freedom at Midnight ( of which he was the main quoted source ) — his record is seen as very mixed ; one common view is that he hastened the independence process unduly and recklessly, foreseeing vast disruption and loss of life and not wanting this to occur on the British watch, but thereby actually causing it to occur, especially in Punjab and Bengal.

Peter Wright, in his book Spycatcher, claimed that in 1967 Mountbatten attended a private meeting with press baron and MI5 agent Cecil King, and the Government's chief scientific adviser, Solly Zuckerman.

The documentary alleged that a coup was planned to overthrow Wilson and replace him with Mountbatten using the private armies and sympathisers in the military and MI5.

In 1974 Mountbatten began corresponding with Charles about a potential marriage to his granddaughter, Hon.

Nehru was alleged to have had relationships with Padmaja Naidu and Edwina Mountbatten.

Gandhi having tea with Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | Lord Mountbatten, 1947

During recent decades, new buildings were added that contravened the master plan of Spence, such as the Synthetic Chemistry Building and Mountbatten Building ( the latter of which was destroyed by fire in 2005 ).

The ceremonies for the transfer of power were held a day earlier in Karachi, at the time the capital of the new state of Pakistan, so that the last British Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, could attend both the ceremony in Karachi and the ceremony in Delhi.

The actual division of British India between the two new dominions was accomplished according to what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan.

It did not deal with the question of the princely states, but on 3 June Mountbatten advised them against remaining independent and urged them to join one of the two new dominions.

Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command ( SEAC ), had need of a new chief of staff owing to the poor health of Lieutenant-General Henry Royds Pownall.

Memorable events from that year included the first football team's undefeated season and first and only CISAA championship, and the visit of Lady Mountbatten to officially open the new wing to the classroom building.

However, Leese believed that Slim was very tired ( he had asked for leave once Rangoon had been taken ) and proposed to the Supreme Commander South East Asia, Louis Mountbatten and the CIGS, Alan Brooke, that he should be replaced by Philip Christison ( who had amphibious experience and so would be well suited to leading the army in the planned seaborne landings in Malaya ), leaving Slim to take over the new Twelfth Army with the less demanding task of mopping up in Burma.

The new Governor, Sir Hubert Rance, along with Lord Mountbatten of Burma, however, decided to back Aung San and the AFPFL, inviting them to join the Executive Council in order to calm the post-war political unrest.

The new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power as he thought the continuous squabble between the Congress and the Muslim League might lead to a collapse of the interim government.

Under Royal Warrant, they instead took the surname Mountbatten, an Anglicised form of Battenberg.