Mountbatten, Lord Louis

   (1900-1979)

   Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command, 1943-1946, Mountbatten carried out the Allied recapture of Burma from the Japanese. He is best remembered by the Burmese for recognizing Aung San's March 27, 1945, uprising against the Japanese as a legitimate part of the Allied war effort (the rebels were designated the Patriotic Burmese Forces) and for playing a major role in a conciliatory British policy toward Aung San and the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League in the months following the end of World War II. In 1946, he was given the title Viscount (later Earl) Mountbatten of Burma in honor of his wartime achievements. His assassination by Irish Republican Army terrorists in 1979 was widely mourned in Burma.