Mountbatten's Death

Earl Mountbatten's grandson finally tells his story of survival and loss

Timothy Knatchbull, who was 14 when an IRA bomb exploded in the boat on which he was travelling with his grandfather Earl Mountbatten, is to tell his story for the first time.



Tim Walker. Edited by Richard Eden

10:00PM BST 01 May 2009


Knatchbull was seriously injured in the 1979 atrocity in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, in which his twin brother, Nicholas, was killed along with Lord Mountbatten, Baroness Brabourne and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old boy who was working as a crew member.

He has now written a memoir, From a Clear Blue Sky, which will be published on Aug 27, the 30th anniversary of the attack.

"Tim's motivation for writing it was a personal journey of healing and reconciliation, and also of finding out what happened," says Caroline Gascoigne, the publishing director of Hutchinson, which has bought the rights to the book for an undisclosed sum.

"Part of the book is an anatomy of an assassination and it's almost like a detective story as he assembles who was doing what and where. It's also a story about twinhood, and about losing someone whom you have barely spent a day apart from in your life."

She adds: "It's a gripping read from a factual and a psychological point of view, and it's a redemptive book, not a grim one

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mandrake/5259162/Earl-Mountbattens-grandson-finally-tells-his-story-of-survival-and-loss.html

'On the morning of Monday, August 27, 1979, Paul Maxwell asked me the time. He laughed when I told him it was eleven thirty-nine and forty seconds.'

Thus begins Timothy Knatchbull’s painstakingly researched, personal and often moving account of an event which made headlines around the world.

Less than ten minutes later, at 11.46, Shadow V, the pleasure boat carrying Earl Mountbatten, twins Timothy and Nicolas Knatchbull, their parents John and Patricia Brabourne, their grandmother the Dowager Lady Brabourne and Paul Maxwell, the boat boy from Enniskillen, was blown to smithereens just off Mullaghmore Head by a bomb planted by the IRA.

Timothy’s grandfather, Earl Mountbatten died instantly, as did Timothy’s identical twin brother Nicolas (aged 14) and Paul Maxwell (aged 15). The Dowager Lady Brabourne died of her injuries the following day.

At the same time, Francis McGirl, driver of a red Ford Escort had been flagged down at a checkpoint in Granard, County Offaly. He and his passenger, Thomas McMahon, were held in the local police station. When questioned by Garda James Lohan, McGirl became nervous and gave the false name Patrick Rehill.

Knatchbull has pieced together, in meticulous detail, the Shadow V rescue operation in Mullaghmore. Brian Best and Richard Wallace, doctors from Northern Ireland, oversaw the operation and organised transportation for the survivors and the dead back to Mullaghmore harbour and on to Sligo General hospital.

Lord Mountbatten’s body was taken to shore on Edward Dawson’s fourteen-foot rubber Zodiac. Charlie Pearce’s dinghy relayed Timothy Knatchbull’s seriously injured parents and grandmother. Knatchbull himself was aboard Dick and Elizabeth Wood-Martin’s boat which, with its engine spluttering, made slow progress back to harbour.

Paul Maxwell’s body arrived on Gus Mulligan’s boat, where it was discovered by Paul’s distraught father, John Maxwell. Patricia Brabourne’s dog Twiga also perished and was recovered. But at this point in the book there is no mention of what became of Knatchbull’s twin brother Nicolas, still missing.

At Sligo general hospital Dr Tony Heenan led a small team of doctors and nurses, handling the emergency efficiently and sympathetically. When they were well enough, Timothy and Patricia Brabourne were told that Nicolas had died. Patricia later described it as 'the worst moment of my life'. She decided she did not have the strength even to think about it and that she would deal with it once she had a bit more life in her.

A family friend, Sylvia Crathorne, who came to Classiebawn to support the wounded while family members attended the funeral of Lord Mountbatten, Lady Brabourne and Nicholas Knatchbull in England wrote to her sister:

'I can’t tell you how devastating, how moving, how heartrending this nightmare is. It’s impossible really to describe what a bomb victim looks like – not so as to let the other person feel the full sickening horror.'

Dr Heenan went beyond the call of duty to comfort Norton Knatchbull, the Brabourne’s eldest son who had arrived from England to be with his brothers and sisters. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey and took Norton into one of the drawing rooms at Classiebawn castle, emerging later to warn that 'there should be no more stiff upper lips here'.

As well as detailed accounts of the trial of McMahon and McGirl, the author analyses the inadequate security surrounding Mountbatten and his family. He assesses the IRA’s motives in targeting Mountbatten and describes the complex nature of support for the Republican movement among the population of Ireland in 1979, quoting both Gerry Adams and John Hume.

http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article/2775/book-review-from-a-clear-blue-sky

HellsAngel wrote: »

Agreed, the murder of the two young boys was unacceptable, no excuses of "collatoral damage" etc are good enough. It was triggered by a line of sight device, a remote control for a toy plane by a guy from Monaghan called Tommy McMahon.

HellsAngel wrote: »

I don't want to turn this thread into a debate about the partition of India, but many in India took schadenfreude* at his death as they blamed him as one of the leading figures in the British engineering of the partition of the country and the subsequent deaths of at least a million people and vastly more refugees.

* enjoying someone’s misfortune

end a eknny wrote: »

well i think the irish as a rule have an understandable bitternes towards the british given are history

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Yes, to an extent and of course to the killers, but not all Irish people surely?