TORONTO -- As the world mourns the death of the Queen’s husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, and reminisces on his life, there are some surprising facts about his past that may not be familiar to everyone.

From being smuggled out of Greece as a baby to the action he saw in the Second World War, here are 10 things about Prince Philip you may not have known.

He was a pilot

The prince gained his pilot’s qualifications with the Royal Air Force in 1953 before going on to get his helicopter wings with the Royal Navy in 1956 and his private pilot’s license in 1959. The prince clocked 5,986 hours of flight in 59 types of aircraft before his final flight in August of 1997, according to Palace press release.

A television first

The Duke of Edinburgh was the first royal interviewed on television in May of 1961. He was also instrumental in arranging for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II to be broadcast live, and has presented on television programmes in the past – including a BBC special on his 1957 Commonwealth tour.

He is worshipped as a god

Islanders on Tanna, one of the islands in Vanuatu in the South West Pacific, worship the late prince as a god. The “Prince Philip Movement” believes that he is the son of their ancestral god who lives up in the mountains.

A home in every port

The duke was a Freeman of the cities of Acapulco, Belfast, Bridgetown, Barbados, Cardiff Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Guadalajara, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne and Nairobi.

A Freeman is a non-citizen of a country or city who is granted full political and civil rights as an honour.

Escape by orange crate

When Prince Philip was an 18-month-old baby in 1922, he was smuggled out of Greece in an orange crate after his uncle, the King of Greece, Constantine I, had been forced to abdicate following the Greco-Turkish War.

The family fled to France on a British Royal Navy ship with Prince Philip nestled in a makeshift cot made out of an orange box.

He served in the Second World War

The prince was on the HMS Valiant in the Mediterranean Fleet and was involved in the 1941 battle of Matapan in Greek waters against the Italian fleet. The prince also served on the destroyer HMS Whelp in the Pacific and was present in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender on Sept. 2, 1945.

He came from a line of kings

The prince was the youngest child and only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. His grandfather was a prince of Denmark who became the king of Greece, and he is related to the king of Prussia and emperors of Russia. The prince renounced his Greek royal title in 1947 and became a naturalized British subject after his service in the Royal Navy.

Record holder

Prince Philip was the longest-serving British consort – outliving Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III. He broke the record in 2005 when he and the Queen celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary.

Controversial comments

Prince Philip made headlines over the years for making blunt and often offensive comments during official royal engagements, some of which have been criticized as being racist.

In 1969, for example, he reportedly asked singer Tom Jones in 1969 “what do you gargle with, pebbles?”

On another occasion, the prince asked a Scottish politician in 2010, after pointing to a tartan, whether she had underwear made from the same material.

An accomplished author

According to Palace records, the prince was an accomplished author – writing on subjects, such as the environment, technology and animals. His books include “Selected Speeches,” “Birds from Britannia,” “Down to Earth,” and “Survival or Extinction: A Christian Attitude to the Environment.”