FIFTY-FIVE MINUTES WITH MOUNTBATTEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 355, 12 April 1946, Page 32

FIFTY-FIVE MINUTES WITH MOUNTBATTEN

DMIRAL LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN, as everybody knows, was in Wellington last week, with Lady Mountbatten. It was an occasion for another of those press conferences, and so we went along too. We found a handful of journalists standing round waiting for the electric clock to show 4.0 p.m. and we joined that fidgety throng. A very charming young major, who had exactly the right way with’ reporters, was going round making us feel. at ease and offering everyone cyclostyled "material" and photographs. And then in a moment-it was right on 4.0 p.m., or felt like it-the Supreme Allied Commander in South-east Asia walked into the room. Roll Call He faced a quiet, diffident little bunch. of men and women. An officer introduced him to one of us and then he took his right hand round the room, and we all shook it and said: our names, and the names of our papers. Then he sat down and said, "Just draw up as close as you like." So we settled down and Lord Louis began to tell us that he had intended to speak off the record at the State luncheon and then talk on the record for us, but he had gone and spoken on the record at the luncheon... At this point, the glass doors, which had a pair of discreet blinds supplied by the hotel management, opened a second time, and Lady Mountbatten came in. When we had "settled down again, Lord Louis resumed: "I was saying, Ethel, when you came in, that I was to have talked on the record now, and off the record at the luncheon, but now the position is reversed .. ." This had just got going when the door opened once more and a contingent of women reporters, who had _ evidently been waiting in the wrong place, began to pour in. So we all made some sort of compromise between the demands of courtesy and our own anxiety to get on with the business, and before long everyone had a seat of some sort. After a pause, one who was bolder than the rest said: "Er, sir, would you discuss Singapore?" Lord Louis felt there wouldn’t be any point in that. " IT don’t want to really; it’s all in the melting pot- you might call it sub judice, because the conference of Empire premiers will be discussing the question. Anything I might say would be, well, mis-timed." "Premature," nodded the reporter. And there was another silence. Lady Mountbatten smiled and said, "They can’t think of any questions." So here we had an accession of boldness. We had a question: "A landlubber’s question-what is a station-keeper?" Lord Louis laughed. He smacked his left fist with his right hand. Too Technical "It’s not- simple, and you won’t want to take it down: When two ships are together, one is the guide, and the other

has to keep station. That’s all right when there are just two, but when you’re the ninth of nine ships it’s not so easy, and I have been the 26th of 27 ships, going hard-astern, then full speed ahead, and so on. My station-keeper is simply a device that .. ." And at this point we took refuge in our conviction that no one else understood the answer any better than we did, But we should explain that the Mountbatten station-keeper for destroyers is one of quite a number of instruments and gadgets Lord Louis has produced during his service career. He perfected it just before this war. Then someone asked for something about India: "Well now, if I were a politician, I should welcome your question-I should make a brilliant broadcast, and it would come true, and I should get in at the next election. But I’m a military commander, and I’m not supposed to know anything about these things, you see. There again, it’s sub judice, isn’t it? The Cabinet mission is sitting in Delhi to-day considering it RO 7 Bch Off the Record "But of course if you want to know anything about India off the record, I'll say anything you like. I understand that if I say a thing is off the record that’s observed here-isn’t that so?" He looked round the room and there was an earnest chorus of "Absolutely" and "Why, certainly." "Ask me the most indiscreet questions and see what I'll say!" he went on. But no one asked any indiscreet questions. There was another pause. Lord Louis was quite at his ease, one leg up across the other knee, his fingers tapping on the knee, Lady Mountbatten just smiled now and again at one of the women. A voice from over Lord Louis’ shoulder spoke up: "Can you tell me, sir, what was the most outstanding lesson learned at Singapore?" He found this such an easy one that he went far too fast for us, and we left it to the dailies. In the Line of Fire It was round about this time that we. began to be conscious of the presence of a photographer about 18 inches from our left ear. He had a leather case on a bookshelf, and he was plunging his hand into a mess of crisp and noisy wrappings, like someone at a concert with a bag of sweets. At last he got it outanother flash-bulb-and screwed it into his-lamp. Then he asked us to keep our pad down. He had his camera on the shelf, aimed at Lady Mountbatten, about eight feet away. So we promised to try and remember to keep our pad low down. The questions and answers went on: "Has the British effort in’ Burma receiyed full credit?" someone asked. Lord Louis thought not. But the editor of his SEAC newspaper was writing a pamphlet that would come out in July or so and that would be the first authoritative thing of its kind,

"Can I say a word on that?" Everyone looked up. Lady Mountbatten had joined the discussion for the first time. "I think it is being recognised now in Britain," she said. "People have been going back to Britain and making it known-General Slim, my husband’s general in Burma, for instance-and there’s a film called Burma Victory* which I hope you'll see in New Zealand, because it’s a very fine picture." Suspense Some allowance must be made for any shortcomings in our notes from here on. It was that flash-bulb. When was it going to go off? We feared to look round. in case it went off just then. So we went on taking notes and hoping it would ‘be soon. To the question about the value of Burma in the Grand Strategy, Lord Louis brought a tentative answer — the number of enemy killed, for the whole campaign: "Now don’t quote me harum scarum, please, or we shall all look ridiculous," he said. "But here’s just a _ fruitful source of inquiry for you that may prove something: find out .the, number of Japanese killed in the whole campaign and compare it with the number killed in any other campaign in the war." Lord Louis at no stage called the Japanese "Japs." Nor did his wife, who joined in again at this point: "In September," she said, "when we were in there recovering Allied prisoners of war, I found that the Japanese who spoke English didn’t link the defeat of Japan with the atom bomb at all, but with their defeat in Burma. I think that says something for the importance of the Burma campaign." There followed some talk of prestige, and the British Army’s relations with the people of Burma. Lord Louis said it depended on behaviour and right-mind-edness. "And food," said Lady Mountbatten. And all the pencils of the female: reporters sprang into life again. A feeling that this was partly their show suddenly overcame the women’s contingent, and they began to put Women’s Angle questions to Lady Mountbatten: "How had the children of Britain come through the war?" "How about daytime nurseries?" and so on. Then came questions about the Red Cross, and St. John Ambulance, for Lady. Mountbatten to answer. Our pad re--minds us that she emphasised her

answers by wagging her dark glasses at her questioner. Our memory reminds us also that about this time we remembered that flash-bulb, and the fidgety fingers of its owner. But we didn’t risk a glance. One of, the women put a question about the women of Malaya. And we found ourselves regarding the right hand of Lady Mountbatten on the arm of her chair, tipping a pencil over and over, and sliding her fingers to the bottom, each time-this was a comforting thing to watch, because it’s one of those little habits we happen to have ourselves; when... ; Flash! We jumped-as we don’t remember jumping for a long time. The reporters across the room sniggered, Lord Louis thought it was funny too. By then it was all over. We were left with an impression of agreeable warmth down the left side of our face. And the photographer consoled us in a low whisper: "Sorry," he said, "I’ve been waiting for hours for that smile." The conversation went on long enough for us to recover poise for one more question. We explained that we were a radio paper, and asked: "Has radio made any difference to life in the Navy?" "Indeed it has," said Lord Mountbatten, with something of a chuckle. "Before, you gave your own orders. Now, you do what you're told." "Sorry," .we said. "The question wasn’t clear-tradio in the recreational sense, not military communications." The Last Words "Oh, I see. Yes, it has made a tremendous difference. In 1932 I got loudspeakers put in all the mess decks, and the system was arranged so that ship broadcasts could be given, or programmes of gramophone records, or broadcasting could be picked up. I also started installing cinemas-lI had specifications made out for portable ship’s cinemas, and they were linked up with the other systems. And it was my practice always to give a daily broadcast to my own ship, tell them where we were, and soon." The next note on our pad is a note of the last words we heard from the lips of Lord Louis Mountbatten, spoken to a member of his staff as he went out to the lift: "You see, I was going to talk off the record at the luncheon and then like a silly ass I went and said something entirely different there, and now I’ve got to think out what I’m going to

say to-night

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