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He also did a lot of playing, and the Court of George V did not always ap prove of his playmates. One of his boon companions was Edward, Prince of Wales. Another was the late Douglas Fairbanks. Not until Edward briefly took the throne did Lord and Lady Louis Mountbatten have an unclouded welcome at court. Then, in 1937, he became King Edward's naval aide-de-camp.
Before that, the gay Mountbattens were accounted among "the palace gang" of blooded, moneyed youngsters who kept Queen Mary in a continuous state of alarm.
In the mid-1920's, while the Mountbattens were visiting the U.S., beauteous Lady Louis publicly danced the Charleston with Fred Astaire. Soon afterward, London was given to understand that Queen Mary disapproved of dancing with cinema actors, and Lord Louis was blackballed from the sacrosanct Royal Yacht Squadron.
New Dickie. Last year, just before Lord Louis took over Combined Operations, he was sent to the U.S. to command the bombed aircraft carrier Illustrious, then under repair at Norfolk Navy Yard. On that visit, their U.S. friends saw a new Lord and Lady Louis Mountbatten. Lord Louis no longer hid his light under a fashionable bushel. Once one of London's best-dressed women, Lady Louis was often in uniform. As Lady President of Britain's swank St. John's Ambulance Brigade, she toured the U.S. for the Red Cross. Between chores, the Mountbattens visited their daughters, 17-year-old Patricia and 12-year-old Pamela, who since mid-1940 had been living in the U.S. with Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt.
"All Tickety Boo." After Lord Louis got his three different ranks someone suggested that he alternate in Army, Navy, R.A.F. uniforms. Lord Louis stuck to his braided Navy blue. Londoners often see him at about 9:30 each morning, driving himself to work in his four-seater Ford (Priority No. 14). Nowadays, he has almost no club or social life. Often, he lunches on sandwiches in his headquarters office. "All tickety boo," he says when everything is as he likes it, in apple pie order.
Under him is another officer (name secret) who attends to the actual Commando details. Lord Louis has the larger, harder job of coordinating Army, Navy, Air Force action in the precisely planned and timed Commando raids. In fact, exclusive emphasis upon the Commandos exasperates him; they are. he knows, the heart and center of his organization, but he would like to see the Navy and Air Force get more credit.
To date, the Commandos have made countless, unannounced raids on coastal France, Norway, The Netherlands, even on Italy and Africa. Often their bag is no more than a few Nazi soldiers and officers, isolated damage to small Nazi posts—and the incalculable effects upon Nazi morale of swift, unannounced, murderous visits after dark. In their six publicized raids (two on Norway's Lofotens, others on Boulogne, St. Nazaire, Vagsoy), the total damage done could not compare with that achieved by the R.A.F.'s 1,000-plane raid on the Rhineland last week.