In March 1920 Lord Louis Mountbatten was posted to the battlecruiser HMS Renown and accompanied Edward, Prince of Wales, on a royal tour of Australia in her. After Australia the Renown went on to Fiji, Samoa, Honolulu, and then to Colon via the Panama Canal. During September 1920 they stopped on Oahu, Hawaii, staying for a week’s holiday in the Moana Hotel, Honolulu. While in Hawaii they enjoyed surf riding off Waikiki beach. Each had an expert Kanaka surf rider to help. The Prince had David Kahanamoku and Mountbatten had Kalakaua Kawananakoa.
The Prince of Wales and Mountbatten waiting for their surfboards
Mountbatten at the end of a ride
Waikiki, Honolulu, 1st September 1920. Prince Kalakaua Kawananakoa, Mountbatten, the Prince of Wales and D.P.Kahanamoku
Mountbatten was made Governor of the Isle of Wight from 20 July 1965 and then the first Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight from 1 April 1974.
Click on the pic above for a link to a movie of when Mountbatten was made Governor of the Isle of Wight.
In 1979 Mountbatten, along with three other people, including a grandson Nicholas, was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who planted a bomb in his fishing boat, the Shadow V, at Mullaghmore, County Sligo, in Ireland.
Mountbatten had many ties to the Island and today is still honored with our local hospice named after him. In 1982 Earl Mountbatten House opened as a 9 bed unit within the National Health Service (now known as Earl Mountbatten Hospice) in honour of the Island’s Governor.