Guilty party
Sir: Once again Antony Lambton (Books, 8 June) has gone to press on the subject of Lord Louis Mountbatten. The last time was on 13 May 1990, when the Times published a one-and-a-half page spread written by Lambton the week before the `Is this one dead?' publication of his book The Mountbattens — useful publicity indeed.
In the third paragraph he had this to say about Lord Louis: 'No mistake could be admitted, every failure must be concealed, and if history conflicted with the tablets of his belief, it was his business to contradict or destroy the evidence.' Well, I do not know to what extent that may be true; but I find it difficult to believe that it is wholly so, and this is why:– In late 1944 I was No 1 (Army) Com- mando in Burma, when Lord Louis visited our brigade. He was then Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia, a very big shot indeed. We had never met before, but when I was introduced he said, straight away. 'Come over here, Turnbull, will you?', and we went to a corner of the hut. He went on: 'I can't tell you how glad I am to have caught up with 1 Commando at last, because I have had you on my conscience for a long time, and wanted to apologise in person for Operation Myrmi- don. It was quite awful, but you got away with it, thank goodness. Pass the word round, will you?' (His exact words, noted down at the time.) He had been Chief of Combined Opera- tions in early 1942 when Myrmidon, involving ourselves and No 6 Commando, was planned — or, rather, misplanned so that it was undoubtedly his ultimate responsibility, though I tend to blame the Admiralty more than Combined Ops.
But nearly three years later, when he visited us in Burma, we had virtually forgotten about it — water under the bridge — and there was no reason whatev- er for him to have brought the matter up, and accept responsibility, as he did.
Was this the action of a man who 'never admitted a mistake, concealed every fai- lure, and contradicted or destroyed the evidence'? I wonder if there is something personal in Lambton's seemingly obses- sional dislike of Lord Mountbatten?
J. H . S. Turnbull
Rossdhal, Comrie, Perthshire
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