Lord Louis Mountbatten achieved great things both in war and peace as a military leader and public servant. The First World War and its aftermath shaped his early life, in mid-career he was a victorious commander in the Second World War, and when peace came he brought independence to India and Pakistan. Mountbatten remains a controversial figure, but when his faults are considered in the light of the world-shaking events in which he was involved, they are overwhelmingly outweighed by his achievements. His murder, and those of members of his family and a friend, on 27 August 1979, by assassins of the Provisional IRA, shocked the world. This book was first published in hardback 1996 as The Princely Sailor, by Brasseys.