Prince Philip had a distinguished naval career passing out at the top of his class in January 1940 and seeing military action for the first time in the Indian Ocean.

He transferred to the battleship HMS Valiant and was mentioned in dispatches for his part in the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941.

As the officer in charge of the ship's searchlights, he played a crucial role in this decisive night action.

"I found another ship and it lit up the middle part of it, whereupon it practically disappeared instantly under a salvo of 15in shells at point-blank range," he said.

By October 1942, he was serving on the destroyer HMS Wallace and he was one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.

Throughout this period, he and the young Princess Elizabeth had been exchanging letters and he was invited to stay with the Royal Family.

Their relationship developed in peacetime and, in the summer of 1946, he asked the King for his daughter's hand in marriage.

The wedding took place in Westminster Abbey, November 20, 1947, and he returned to the Royal Navy and was posted to Malta where the couple lived the life of a regular service family.

Prince Charles, was born at Buckingham Palace in 1948, and daughter, Princess Anne, arrived in 1950. Prince Andrew (1960) and Prince Edward (1964) followed.

On September 2, 1950, he achieved the ambition of every naval officer when appointed to his own command, HMS Magpie.

But his naval career was about to come to an end when the poor health of George VI meant his daughter had to take on more royal duties and needed her husband alongside.

Philip took leave from the Royal Navy in July 1951 and never returned to service.

Contemporaries have said that he could have risen to become First Sea Lord.

Prince Philip of Greece was born on June 10, 1921 on the island of Corfu although his birth certificate shows the date as May 28, 1921, as Greece had not then adopted the Gregorian calendar.

His father was Prince Andrew of Greece, a younger son of King George I of the Hellenes. His mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and sister of Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

After a coup d'etat in 1922, his father was banished from Greece by a revolutionary court.

A British warship sent by his cousin, King George V, took the family to Italy. Baby Philip spent much of the voyage in a crib made from an orange box.

He was the youngest child, the only boy in a family of sisters.

The Prince began his education in France but moved to England to live with his Mountbatten relatives where he attended school in Surrey.

By this time his mother had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and been placed in an asylum.

In 1933, he was sent to Schule Schloss Salem in southern Germany, which was run by educational pioneer Kurt Hahn. But within months, Hahn, who was Jewish, was forced to flee Nazi persecution.

Hahn moved to Scotland where he founded Gordonstoun school, to which the prince transferred.

Gordonstoun's emphasis on self-reliance was the ideal environment for a teenage boy who, separated from his parents, felt very much on his own.

With war looming, Prince Philip decided on a military career after Gordonstoun. He wanted to join the Royal Air Force but his mother's family had a seafaring tradition and he became a cadet at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.

While there he was delegated to escort the two young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, while King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured the college. This was to be the start of their remarkable life together.

The Prince needed a new nationality and a family name when marrying Princess Elizabeth. He renounced his Greek title, became a British citizen and took his mother's anglicised name, Mountbatten.

The day before the marriage ceremony, King George VI bestowed the title of His Royal Highness on Philip and on the morning of the wedding day he was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich.

Prince Philip was widely praised for his commitment to preserving the world's forests and campaigning against overfishing in the oceans.

He also took a keen interest in industry, visiting factories and becoming patron of the Industrial Society, now known as the Work Foundation.

The Duke retired from public life in August 2017 after decades of supporting the Queen and attending events for his own charities and organisations.

Buckingham Palace calculated he had completed 22,219 solo engagements since 1952, and Theresa May, the then prime minister, thanked him for a "remarkable life of public service".

He died on April 9, 2021, two months before his 100^th birthday.