Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is one of the most recognizable men in the world.
As the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, he has represented the British monarchy for over sixty years and is the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch.
Philip’s father Andrew was absent at his birth.
Separated from his wife and son by the effects of the war, Andrew was away fighting in the Greek army during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-22).
During this conflict Andrew was the commander of the Greek Second Army Corps, but he proved to be an ineffectual general.
Though his position was substantive, rather than honorary , at the pivotal Battle of Sakarya in 1921, he refused to obey the orders of his superior officer and tried to work to his own battle plan.
This lack of coordination and communication contributed to a battlefield stalemate, and subsequently the war was lost.
Andrew was relieved of his command and a year later he was arrested as part of the September 11, 1922 Revolution, which led to the downfall of the Greek Monarchy.
As the brother of the king and a disgraced army commander, Andrew was in deep trouble.
He was accused of treason and initially sentenced to death.
When Phillip’s mother heard of Andrew’s plight she traveled to Athens to plead for her husband’s life, however, she was not permitted to see him, and turned to her British relatives for help.
Answering the pleas of Phillips mother, King George V, urged for evacuation and the Greek court banished Andrew from Greece for life and he was released in December 1922.
He was very fortunate, considering six other senior members of the government were tried and executed.
Prince Philip, who was still a baby, was carried to a ship for safety in an orange box.
For Phillip , it was the start of decades of stateless wandering.
The family tried to settle in France at Saint-Cloud near Paris where Andrew and Alice borrowed a house.
From the start they lived in relative poverty.
Wealthy relatives paid for Phillip’s education at the MacJannet American School in Paris.
Philip’s life was already in a confused state as he was a Greek prince, living in France, but being educated in a British fashion.
Prince Philip with his family
By this stage Philip’s family life was already beginning to collapse.
His mother Alice, succumbed to a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized in 1931.
Phillip’s father, Andrew effectively relinquished responsibility for their son.
Around the same time Philip’s sisters all married within nine months of each other and left to settle in Germany,
At this point, Phillip’s British family now assumed responsibility for him, and Philip decided to join the Royal Navy.
To him, it brought a purpose to his life.
Many years later , his grandson, Prince Harry, would echo the same sentiment of his own service in the British army.
Philip’s war service began and shortly after, Italy invaded Greece and Philip became an active participant on the Allied side.
He was in charge of operating the ship’s searchlight to pick out ships during the night. He recalled:
“I reported that I had a target in sight and was ordered to ‘open shutter’. The beam lit up a stationary cruiser and at this point all hell broke loose, as all our eight 15-inch guns, plus those of the flagship, plus HMS Barham’s, started firing at the stationary cruiser, which disappeared in an explosion and a cloud of smoke. I was then ordered to ‘train left’ and lit up another Italian cruiser, which was given the same treatment.”
The two cruisers identified by the Duke, a third Italian cruiser and two destroyers were sunk by the British fleet, with the loss of 2,300 sailors.
It was Italy’s worst defeat at sea.
Allied losses during the battle amounted to a single torpedo bomber which was shot down with the loss of its three-man crew. Allied ships picked up 1,015 Italian survivors, with another 160 saved by the Italians.
The Duke added: “The next morning the battle fleet returned to the scene of the battle, while attempts were made to pick up survivors they were interrupted by an attack by German bombers
The next year, Philip had been appointed first lieutenant – second-in-command – at the age of 21.
April 2006 Prince Harry Sandhurst parade and Queen Elizabeth II, his grandmother.
In July 1943, Aboard the HMS Wallace, Philip engaged in assisting in the Allied Landings, when it came under attack by an enemy aircraft during the night.
The attacks came quickly, one after another, and the crew knew that the next bombardment would result in a hit.
Operation Husky
During a lull in the attack Philip acted quickly and conjured up a plan to throw overboard a wooden raft with smoke floats that would create the illusion of debris ablaze on the water.
One yeoman sailor aboard the ship, Harry Hargreaves, recalled in a Canadian interview:
Philip ended his war aboard HMS Whelp, which was one of the ships that took part in the formal surrender of Japanese forces on 2 September 1945.
the Japanese delegation, including Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu, chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff. Once reaching the deck, the Japanese had to walk past eight seamen, each one more than 6 feet tall. requested by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in a calculated effort to emphasize Allied superiority and intimidate the Japanese delegation.
He recalled, “Being in Tokyo Bay with the surrender ceremony taking place in the battle ship, which was what, 200 yards away and you could see what was going on with a pair of binoculars, it was a great relief”.
After the surrender his ship took on former prisoners of war and he was shocked by their appearance.
“These people were naval people.
They were emaciated… tears pouring down their cheeks, they just drank their tea, they couldn’t really speak.
It was a most extraordinary sensation.”
The Duke joined the Royal Navy as a 17-year-old cadet in 1939 as the storm clouds of war gathered on the horizon.
He described his rank of Midshipman during the battle as the “lowest form of life in the Navy”.
During his subsequent naval career the Duke rose through the ranks becoming, aged 21, one of the youngest officers in the Navy to be made First Lieutenant and second-in-command of a ship.
He ended the war serving with the British Pacific Fleet, taking part in the landings on Iwo Jima with the US Navy.
His ship, HMS Whelp, was one of two which escorted HMS York to Tokyo Bay in order for the Commanders-in-Chief of the US Navy and Royal Navy to accept the Japanese surrender.
Now that the war was over he expected to continue in his naval career, but fate had determined a different future for him.
Operation Husky: The Sicily Landings 9-10 July 1943: Men of the 51st ( Highland) Division gathered round a piano have a “sing-song” on the deck of HMS