True story of Lord Mountbatten’s death

In the first episode of Netflix’s final season of The crown, we watch Lord Mountbatten, known affectionately as Uncle Dickie, board a humble fishing boat known as the Shadow V. In a moment intended to show a loving grandfather catching lobsters with his grandson, the scene becomes shocking when the boat bursts into flames, and audiences intuitively know the heartwarming royal – and Prince Charles’ greatest ally – is gone forever.

Equally unexpected was the actual attack on August 27, 1979 off Mullaghmore, Ireland. Lord Mountbatten, who held titles such as Admiral of the Fleet, First Earl Mountbatten of Burma and last Viceroy of India, was 79 years old, a hero of World War II and great-grandmother son of Queen Victoria herself. He served as a father figure for Prince Philip and Prince Charles, and although he kept a large house near London called Broadlands, he liked to retire to Ireland for fishing trips on the Shadow V and had made such escapades for about three decades, according to The New York Times. August 27 was supposed to be a normal day, except Ireland did not experience normal times.

In 1979, Northern Ireland was in the midst of an ethno-nationalist struggle known as the Troubles, in which largely Catholic Irish nationalists sought to wrest Northern Ireland from its union with the United Kingdom. This battle was fought by the Irish Republican Army, whose members have been labeled terrorists by the Unionist armies, including the British Army. Members of the IRA saw the struggle as a crusade against British colonialism and British control of Irish soil. Thus, an attack on Lord Mountbatten – a member of the British Royal Family, a long-standing symbol of England’s colonizing power – was considered a victory. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, nearly 4,000 people have died during the unrest, with an estimated 30,000 others injured. Among the dead was Lord Mountbatten.

But many Irish people, including some nationalists, protested against the violence of the Shadow V explosion. A remote control bomb, planted on board the boat by an IRA member, killed not only Dickie, but also his 14-year-old grandson Nicholas, Nicholas’ grandmother Lady Brabourne, and a 15-year-old boat named Paul Maxwell, who had won the concert that summer, according to the Irish time. Although the IRA referred to the attack as part of the “noble struggle to drive British intruders out of our homeland,” according to the Times, the deaths of innocent women and children caused a stir around the world, and the loss of Dickie mobilized a heartbroken Britain.

According to The Guardian, the attack on Shadow V was not the only loss of the day. Hours later, two more bombs exploded 160 km away in Northern Ireland, killing 18 British soldiers. The IRA took responsibility for the attacks, using them as a warning after the violence Bloody Sunday 1972, in which British soldiers killed 13 Northern Catholic protesters, according to History. This is why you’ll hear an IRA leader announce during the episode of The crown, “Thirteen dead and not forgotten, we had 18 and Mountbatten.”

In 2015, before a visit to the place where Mountbatten was killed, Prince Charles said at a reception in Sligo“At the time, I couldn’t imagine how we could accept the anguish of such a deep loss, because to me Lord Mountbatten represented the grandfather I never had. It seemed that the foundations of everything we held dear in life had been irreparably torn apart. Through this experience, I now deeply understand the suffering endured by so many others in these islands, regardless of religion, denomination or political tradition.

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