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Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett

William Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett, (6 September 1883 – 10 February 1962), was a British barrister, judge, politician and preacher who served as the deputy British judge during the Nuremberg Trials.

Birkett received his education at Barrow-in-Furness Higher Grade School. He was a Methodist preacher and a draper before attending Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1907, to study theology, history and law. Upon graduating in 1910 he worked as a secretary and was called to the Bar in 1913.

Declared medically unfit for military service during World War I, Birkett used the time to make up for his late entry into the legal profession and was appointed a King's Counsel in 1924. He became a criminal defence lawyer and acted as counsel in a number of famous cases including the second of the Brighton trunk murders. A member of the Liberal Party, he sat in Parliament for Nottingham East twice, first in 1923 and again in 1929.

Despite refusing appointment to the High Court of Justice in 1928, he was offered the position again in 1941 and accepted, joining the King's Bench Division. In 1945 he served as the alternate British judge at the Nuremberg trials, and he was made a privy counsellor in 1947. He joined the Court of Appeal in 1950 but retired in 1956 when he had served for long enough to draw a pension. From 1958 he served in the House of Lords, and his speech against a private bill in 1962 (the Bill sought to convert the Cumbrian lake Ullswater into a reservoir) saw it defeated by 70 votes to 36, two days before he died on 10 February 1962.

Described as "one of the most prominent Liberal barristers in the first half of the 20th century" and "the Lord Chancellor that never was", Birkett was noted for his skill as a speaker, which helped him defend clients with almost watertight cases against them. As an alternate judge, Birkett was not allowed a vote at the Nuremberg Trials, but his opinion helped shape the final judgment. During his tenure in the Court of Appeal he oversaw some of the most significant cases of the era, particularly in contract law, despite his avowed dislike of judicial work.

Early life and education
Norman was born in Ulverston, Lancashire (now part of the administrative county of Cumbria), on 6 September 1883 to Thomas Birkett, a draper, and his wife Agnes, who died in 1884 of tuberculosis. He attended the Wesleyan primary school in Ulverston until 1894, when he moved to Barrow-in-Furness Higher Grade School. Although intelligent, Birkett was not noted as a particularly academic student and spent as much time on practical jokes as he did on his studies. He left school in 1898, starting work as an apprentice in one of the draper's shops owned by his father and beginning to preach. He was a popular local preacher on the local Methodist circuit, and, on deciding that he was unlikely to be a good draper, his father allowed him to leave the business in 1904 to become a minister under Charles Bedale. In 1905, Bedale suggested Birkett should go to Cambridge University to study history and theology. Birkett liked the idea, having previously conversed with A. C. Benson, the Master of Magdalene College, and applied to Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The college offered him a place, with the condition that he would have to pass an entrance examination and complete the responsions to be accepted into the university as a whole. He spent three months learning Latin and Greek and was accepted into the university in October 1907.

At Cambridge, Birkett preached on the local Methodist circuit and at The Leys School. He was also active in sport, playing rugby, football and golf. He first spoke at the Cambridge Union Society in his second term at Cambridge on the motion of "this House would welcome the Disestablishment of the Church of England", and the Cambridge Review reported that it was "a most interesting speech". In his second year, he was elected to the Emmanuel Debating Society Committee and spoke many times at the Union on subjects including Home Rule for Ireland, cruelty to animals and secular education. He befriended Arnold McNair, the Secretary of the Union, and McNair agreed to put Birkett's name on the electoral papers for election to the Union Committee. Birkett failed to get in, but on running again in 1910 was elected Secretary of the Union by a margin of only six votes. He became vice-president the following term, and President the term after that. While Birkett was president, the Cambridge Review reported that there was "no speaker more sure of pleasing the house", and the speech he gave when Theodore Roosevelt visited Cambridge was well received by both Roosevelt and the university as a whole.

He gained a Second Class in the Part I History Tripos in 1909, and won the English Essay Prize with an essay on political satire in English poetry. He won the same prize again in 1910, and that year gained first-class honours in his Theological Special Examination. By this point, he was having doubts about his future as a minister and consulted with the university Law Reader as to the possibility of a career as a barrister. On the Reader's advice, Birkett took the Part 2 Law Tripos in 1911, passing with second-class honours. Birkett interviewed with the editors of The Guardian and The Observer in his search for a job to sustain him while he took the bar exam. He took a job as personal secretary to George Cadbury Junior, with a wage of £200 a year, which he planned to hold until he qualified as a barrister. After only a month of working for Cadbury, his salary was raised to £500, and he was offered a permanent position. While there, he continued his political work and spoke on behalf of the Liberal Party, cementing his reputation as an effective speaker by, on one occasion, holding the attention of more than a thousand people for an hour. He took the first part of the Bar Examination in 1912, but failed the paper on real property; he passed it on his second attempt, and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple on 4 June 1913.

While working for Cadbury, Birkett befriended Ruth "Billy" Nilsson, and after he had proposed to her several times, she agreed to marry him. Nilsson gave up her position at Bourneville to move to London and they were married on 25 August 1920. They had two children, a daughter Linnea Birkett on 27 June 1923, and a son Michael Birkett on 22 October 1929. A keen golfer, he was a member of the Harewood Downs Golf Club, near Amersham, Buckinghamshire.

Practice at the Bar and time as a member of parliament

After qualifying as a barrister, he moved to Birmingham in 1914, choosing the city because he had some connections there thanks to his association with Cadbury, and began work at the chambers of John Hurst. His career was aided by the outbreak of World War I; many of the younger and fitter barristers were called up for war service, whilst Birkett himself, who was thirty when he joined the bar, avoided conscription as he was declared medically unfit. He was suffering from tuberculosis, and he returned to Ulverston for six months to recover. During his time in Birmingham, he continued his work as a minister, regularly preaching at the Baptist People's Chapel.

Birkett became a popular defence counsel, something that on occasion caused him trouble; he was once forced to refuse a defendant's request to act as his representative because Birkett was expected in a different court. He impressed the Bench in Birmingham so much that, in 1919, he was advised by a local Circuit Judge to move to London to advance his career. Although he was initially hesitant, saying that "competition in London is on quite a different scale, and if I failed there, I would have lost everything I have built up here", a case he took in 1920 changed the situation. He acted as a junior for the prosecution in the so-called Green Bicycle Case against Edward Marshall Hall. Although he lost, he sufficiently impressed Marshall Hall for the latter to offer him a place in his chambers in London. He had no connections with the solicitors in London, and the clerk at his new chambers got around this lack of contacts by using him as counsel in cases involving Marshall Hall, who as a King's Counsel could appear in court only when accompanied by a junior barrister such as Birkett.

Member of Parliament
His father had been a supporter of the Liberal Party, and Birkett had helped campaign for them during the 1906 general election. He had been invited to become the Liberal candidate for Cambridge in 1911, but he refused because he had no income; he did, however, help his employer George Cadbury, Jr. get elected as a Liberal Councillor in Birmingham and helped start a branch of the National League of Young Liberals in the city. Birkett was the Liberal candidate for Birmingham King's Norton in the 1918 general election, but lost to Herbert Austin. Birkett's political career took off in 1923. He ran for Nottingham East in the 1923 general election, and was elected with a majority of 1,436 votes, a feat that was described as an "overwhelming victory" since the Conservative Party had held the seat since 1910 and had a majority of 4,000 at the previous election.

Birkett's maiden speech in Parliament responded to a proposal by Charles Dukes, a Labour Party Member of Parliament, in favour of state pensions for widows with children, and wives whose husbands were unable to work because of injury. Birkett went further than the proposed change and suggested that pensions should be provided to unmarried mothers, deserted wives and divorced wives. His speech was well-received; the Nottingham Journal described it as making "a most excellent impression" on the House of Commons, and Charles Masterman called him "a possible future Lord Chancellor". Because of his focus on his career as a barrister rather than as a politician, Birkett rarely appeared in the House of Commons, but he worked hard when he did attend. On one occasion, he spent all night in a Parliamentary session that ended at 6 a.m. and then attended a court session the next day.

He applied to become a King's Counsel in 1924, since barristers who were also parliamentarians stood a higher chance of getting accepted than others. He was accepted on 15 April 1924 and sworn in on the same day. His promotion was met with approval from several noted judges, including Arthur Greer, later a Lord Justice of Appeal, who wrote that "unless my judgement is very much astray, you will quickly acquire a leading place in the front row", a feeling which was echoed by other justices including William Finlay, who wrote that "I am confident that you will rise to the top of the profession, and I shall very greatly rejoice when my confidence is justified." In his first year as a King's Counsel Birkett earned £8,600, double what he had taken the previous year as a junior brief.

In 1924, the Campbell Case brought down the Labour minority government and forced a general election. Birkett returned to Nottingham East to campaign for his re-election, though he faced a much more difficult job than he had in 1923. The Conservative candidate, Edmund Brocklebank, was much stronger than in the previous election, and the left-wing vote was split because he was also campaigning against Tom Mann, a noted Communist. A few days before the election, the Zinoviev letter, allegedly addressed to the Communist Party, was published that mentioned organising uprisings in British colonies; fear of the "socialist menace" drove many voters to the right, and in the election on 29 October 1924, many Liberal members of parliament, including Birkett, lost their seats to Conservatives.

Practice at the Bar in London
While working with Marshall Hall, Birkett was involved in several notable criminal cases that helped cement his reputation as an outstanding speaker at the Bar.

In 1925, a case known as the "Bachelor's Case" came up at the High Court of Justice between Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Dennistoun and his ex-wife Dorothy Dennistoun. When the Dennistouns divorced, Mr. Dennistoun could not pay ancillary relief. He instead promised that he would provide for his ex-wife in the future when he had the money. Some time after the divorce, Mr. Dennistoun married Almina Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon, the widow of Lord Carnarvon, a rich woman thanks to the terms of her husband's will, who provided for her new husband. After hearing about this, Dorothy Dennistoun demanded the alimony money she had been promised. Lady Carnarvon saw this as blackmail and persuaded her new husband to take his wife to court for what Sir Henry McCardie, who tried the case, called "the most bitterly conducted litigation I have ever known". Marshall Hall and Birkett both worked on the case representing Lady Carnarvon and Mr. Dennistoun, while Ellis Hume-Williams, one of the most respected divorce barristers of the day, represented Mrs. Dennistoun.

The case initially appeared to be going badly for Marshall Hall. An inept cross-examination on his part weakened his argument, and an illness made him irritable and short-tempered. On the advice of his clerk, he asked Birkett to make the closing address before the court, which turned the mood of the courtroom completely and an initially hostile jury decided to disregard the agreement of Mr. Dennistoun to pay ancillary relief to his former wife. Birkett's performance made the front pages of many evening newspapers, including The Daily Mail which described Birkett as "the greatest legal discovery of the year" and called his speech "a brilliant piece of advocacy". His work for this case and the newspaper coverage of it brought him to the attention of many London solicitors, and led to him earning £8,000 in the first seven months of 1925. In that year he made £12,000 overall, an amount which rose to £16,500 in 1926 and peaked in 1929 when he earned £33,500. On meeting Miles Malleson, an old friend from his time at Cambridge, he said in surprise "did you know, Miles, that I am making more money than I thought existed in the world!"

Return to politics
Birkett was returned as MP for Nottingham East at the general election on 31 May 1929 in which he won 14,049 votes, taking the seat with a majority of 2,939.

As the largest single party, the Labour Party formed a minority government and set about filling the ministerial posts. The Labour Party had few experienced lawyers in the House of Commons, so Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald attempted to lure prominent Liberal lawyers to fill the positions of Attorney General and Solicitor General for England and Wales. William Jowitt defected to the Labour Party in exchange for the position of Attorney General, and the position of Solicitor General was offered to Birkett. Birkett replied that "he could not change his politics in twenty-five minutes, and even if the Liberal Party should disintegrate completely, he would not be seen taking refuge in the Labour ark".

Despite having to juggle his career at the Bar and as a member of parliament, Birkett kept up a good attendance in the House of Commons, and along with Sir John Simon he became the leading Liberal spokesperson on the legal side of legislation. His attack on a clause of the Finance Act 1930 drew much praise from both Liberal and Conservative politicians, including Winston Churchill, who said that "I have rarely heard a speech more precisely directed at the object under debate, more harmoniously attuned to the character of Committee discussion, than the excellent statement the Honourable and learned Gentleman has just made". Birkett led the Liberal response to the Labour proposal of the Trade Disputes Bill 1931 and "reduced it to tatters", although the Bill passed because of some Liberal abstentions. The speech was a particularly well-received one and led MacDonald to again offer the position of Solicitor General to Birkett, as the incumbent postholder James Melville was about to resign. Again Birkett refused, and Stafford Cripps was appointed. When the Liberal Party returned to power in 1931 in coalition with the Conservatives and National Labour as part of MacDonald's National Government, it was expected that Birkett would be offered the position being a Liberal Member of Parliament, but by the time they proposed candidates for Solicitor General, the Liberals had exceeded their ministerial quota agreed to in the coalition. Birkett was offered a non-legal office but said that he "could not contemplate a post that meant giving up my practice".

After an economic crisis in 1931, the King dissolved parliament and Birkett returned to Nottingham East to defend his seat; his main opponent was the Conservative, Louis Gluckstein, who had challenged him in the 1929 election. The Conservative Party's support of protectionism met with approval from the electorate, as most were employed in industries which had suffered after the institution of free trade. Gluckstein won the general election on 27 October 1931 with a majority of 5,583 votes.

On 3 November, Birkett was informed that if he had been returned, the Prime Minister intended to make him Solicitor-General. Disillusioned with the circumstances of the election, Birkett "[bade] farewell to East Nottingham" and retired from politics. He was invited to become a Liberal candidate two more times; once in 1931 for Torquay and once in 1932 for North Cornwall. The second was a tempting offer; the seat had become vacant on the death of its previous holder, a National Liberal with a comfortable majority, and it was felt that Birkett was almost certain to be returned to Parliament. Despite this, he refused, disliking the National Liberal policies and the extent to which they had aligned themselves with the Conservative Party.

Return to the Bar
In 1930, Birkett was involved in the so-called Blazing Car murder case. On 6 November 1930, two men returning home in Northampton noticed a bright light in the distance and saw a man come out of a ditch at the side of the road, glance back toward the light and say "looks like somebody has had a bonfire". The two young men ran toward the light, saw it was a burning car and fetched a policeman. When the fires died away, a body was found inside the boot of a car with a face so charred it was impossible to determine the identity of the man; the numberplate of the car was intact, however, and traced to an Alfred Arthur Rouse. Rouse was arrested and appeared at Northampton Crown Court on 26 January 1931, charged with the murder of an unknown man. He was defended by Donald Finnemore, and the Crown was represented by Birkett and Richard Elwes. Rouse was damned by a series of events. When arrested, he made statements such as "I'm very glad it's over" and "I'm responsible" and that the car engine had been off at the time of the fire, ruling out the possibility of accidental ignition. When he appeared as a witness, the defendant claimed that after giving an unknown man a lift, he had found that he was running out of petrol and had asked the passenger to take the spare can in the car and fill up the fuel tank. While he was doing this, Rouse testified that he went to the side of the road to urinate, and while there heard a large explosion. He said he saw a large flame and became convinced the petrol tank would explode. As such he ran away as fast as possible, at which point he ran into the two young men on the road.

The cross-examination of him and other witnesses by Birkett swayed the jury, and they took only fifteen minutes to find Rouse guilty of murder. After his appeal had been rejected by both the Court of Appeal and the Home Secretary, Rouse admitted that he had in fact committed the murder – although he never gave a reason – it was theorised that he had done so in an attempt to fake his own death. Despite his admission of guilt the identity of the victim has never been discovered.

In 1934, Birkett acted as counsel for the second of the two Brighton trunk murders, a case which was described as "his greatest triumph in a capital case". In June 1934, a woman's torso was found in a suitcase in Brighton railway station. The legs were discovered at King's Cross station the next day, but her head and arms were never found, and the case is still unsolved. A woman by the name of Violette Kaye had disappeared, and the appearance of the first woman's body prompted greater scrutiny on Kaye's case. On 14 July, they interviewed Toni Mancini, Kaye's boyfriend, who convinced them that the dead woman could not possibly be Kaye; the dead woman had been identified as around thirty five years old and five months pregnant, while Kaye was ten years older. Kaye was last seen alive on 10 May looking distressed in the doorway to her house and had been scheduled to visit her sister in London who received a telegram on 11 May reading "Going abroad. Good job. Sail Sunday. Will write. Vi." in block capitals. The post office clerks could not remember who sent it, but experts testified that the handwriting on the telegram had similarities to that on a menu written by Mancini. On 14 May, with the help of another man, Mancini moved his belongings from the house he shared with Kaye, which included a large trunk which was too heavy to move by hand. Mancini had told people that he had broken up with Kaye and she had moved to Paris, and that before she left he had beaten her. He later said to a friend, "What is the good of knocking a woman about with your fists? You only hurt yourself. You should hit her with a hammer same as I did and [chop] her up." A hammerhead was later found in the rubbish at his old house.

After the police had left on 14 July, Mancini got on a train to London. When the police arrived the next morning, they were unable to find Mancini but found Kaye's body decomposing in the trunk in his new home. They immediately sent out a country-wide call for Mancini to be arrested, and he was picked up near London. He claimed he was not guilty, and stated during interviews with police that he had returned home to find Kaye dead. Fearing that with his criminal record, the police would not believe him, he had hidden the body in a trunk. While Mancini was in prison, his solicitor phoned Birkett and asked him to work as counsel for the defence, which Birkett agreed to do. In his defence, Birkett highlighted flaws in the prosecution's case to introduce an element of doubt in the minds of the jury. His cross-examination of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, famous Home Office pathologist and potentially the most dangerous witness for the Crown, was seen as "masterly". Birkett also emphasised the affectionate nature of the relationship between Kaye and Mancini before Kaye's death. Despite strong evidence that he had committed the crime, including marks on the victim's skull believed to be from a hammer and marks of blood on Mancini's clothing, the jury found Mancini not guilty after two and a half hours of deliberations. Mancini confessed to the murder before dying.

In March 1936, Birkett defended Dr Buck Ruxton over the infamous Jigsaw Murders. Ruxton was found guilty of murdering his wife, Isabella, and their children's nanny, Mary Rogerson, before dismembering their bodies and disposing of the parts in a ravine at Moffat, in the Scottish Borders. Ruxton was hanged at Strangeways Prison in May 1936.

In May 1937 Birkett was appointed Chairman of the Inter-Departmental Committee for Abortion set up by the Minister of Health and Home Secretary, preparing a report "to inquire into the prevalence of abortion, and the law relating thereto, and to consider what steps can be taken by more effective enforcement of the law", something which occupied him for two years. During the summer of 1937, Birkett was asked to represent the English Bar at the annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association in Toronto, where he was a popular speaker. In January 1938, he was asked to act as a Commissioner of Assize to open the Assize Court in Aylesbury, dealing with an average of 10 cases a day. After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he became a member of a committee advising the Home Secretary on the detention of suspected enemy agents. The committee dealt with more than 1,500 cases in two years. Although the work was unpaid, he was knighted (as a Knight Bachelor) on 6 June 1941 as a reward for his work. He also delivered weekly radio broadcasts after the Friday night news to counter the broadcasts of William Joyce, known as Lord Haw Haw. The first broadcast took place on 9 February 1940, and they were considered to be a morale boost during the so-called Phoney War.

Judicial work
Birkett had been offered appointment to the High Court as early as 1928, but turned it down, saying that "I wasn't really drawn to the judicial office... I loved the Bar too much". After the death of the High Court judge Sir Anthony Hawke in October 1941, the Lord Chancellor Lord Simon offered Birkett the seat. Birkett considered it his "public duty" to join the bench and wrote back on 4 November accepting the offer. He was sworn in on 11 November 1941 and first sat on 24 November. He did not enjoy his time in the high courts, admitting that he "missed the limelight" of being an advocate, and, combined with ill-health, he suffered from depression in 1942. He was, however, a popular judge, although he felt he was too weak in his judgments because he "did not desire to hurt people's feelings". At one point, the Daily Herald reported he was to be made Viceroy of India. For several weeks in 1943, he sat in the Court of Appeal before departing on an Assize visit. He fell ill after a few weeks with a combination of heart disease and pneumonia, and he returned home to recover. He suffered from more illness over the next year and considered resigning as a judge, as he felt that he could no longer trust his abilities as one. During his time in the High Court, he dealt with several notable cases including Constantine v Imperial Hotels Ltd, which reaffirmed the common law principle that innkeepers must not refuse accommodation to guests without just cause.

Nuremberg trials
On 30 August 1945, Birkett received a letter from the Lord Chancellor asking him to serve as the British judge at the Nuremberg Trials of German War Criminals. He accepted, saying that it was "a great honour to be selected". But when he went to London to discuss it, he was informed that the Foreign Office wanted a more senior judge to be in attendance, ideally a Law Lord, but since no Law Lord was available, they had requested that a judge from the Court of Appeal should be appointed. Geoffrey Lawrence was made the main British judge, and Birkett was offered the position of alternate judge for the trials, which he accepted, although with less enthusiasm than he had shown when accepting the original offer. He became friends with the American judge Francis Biddle, although when they first met he accidentally confused him with Anthony Drexel Biddle and remarked how useful his diplomatic training would be in the trials.

The trial lasted from 18 October 1945 to 30 September 1946, and although Birkett did not have a vote in the proceedings as an alternate judge, his opinion was given weight, and it helped sway the decisions made by the main judges. After returning home from the trials, he received praise from both the Lord Chancellor, who said that "The country owes much to him for vindicating our conceptions of an impartial trial under the rule of law", and from John Parker, the American alternate judge, who wrote that: Although only an alternate member of the tribunal without a vote, his voice was heard in all of its deliberations, his hand drafted a large and most important part of its judgment, and no one connected with the tribunal, member or otherwise, had a greater part than he in shaping the final result. If, as I confidently believe, the work of the tribunal will constitute a landmark in the development of world order based on law, to Norman Birkett must go a large share of the credit for the success of the undertaking. To few men does the opportunity come to labour so mightily for the welfare of their kind.

After the judges returned home, Lawrence was made a Baron for his work at Nuremberg, but Birkett received nothing. The lack of reward for his work pushed him into depression, which he took many months to recover from. He was eventually made a Privy Counsellor in the 1947 Birthday Honours list, but he saw this as poor reward for the work he had put in at Nuremberg.

Further judicial work

The rest of his time in the High Court passed uneventfully, but he continued to be unhappy with his work as a judge, noting that "I am nervous of myself, without much confidence in my judgment and hesitant about my sentences and damages and things of that kind. I have felt no glow of achievement in any summing up, though none of them have been bad."

He was again struck by depression in 1948 when Sir Alfred Thompson Denning and Sir John Singleton were both appointed to the Court of Appeal ahead of him, despite having been appointed to the High Court after him. On 30 July 1949, Birkett went to the Lord Chancellor and discussed the possibility of his appointment to the Court of Appeal, but left dissatisfied. On 14 November, a duodenal ulcer perforated, from which he spent six months recovering. In an attempt to appease him, the Lord Chancellor offered Birkett a peerage without salary on 8 May 1950, but he refused as he lacked the means to survive without paid employment. While speaking at a conference in Washington, D.C., on 31 August 1950, he received a telegram from the Lord Chancellor offering him appointment to the Court of Appeal; he immediately wired back his acceptance. He was sworn in on 2 October, and heard his first case the following day.

He found the work in the Court of Appeal dull, and his disappointment increased the longer he worked. As in the High Court, he felt uncertain about his judgements and unsure as to whether he was affecting the law. Despite his personal opinion of himself, the judiciary as a whole felt that his mix of humanity and common sense was beneficial to the court. During the 1951 Long Vacation he broadcast three talks for the BBC on the subject of international law and its growth and gave a speech for the Law Society titled "The Lawyer's Contribution to Society". Despite his unhappiness with his work in the Court of Appeal, he worked until 1956, when his long service as a judge allowed him to draw a pension. In his remaining time in the Court of Appeal, Birkett judged several notable cases, in particular Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd [1953] 1 QB 401, and Entores Ltd v Miles Far East Corporation [1955] 2 QB 327, where the court made a landmark decision on acceptance of a contract in relation to Telex.

Retirement
On 13 June 1957 he became chairman of a committee of Privy Counsellors holding an inquiry into the Home Secretary's use of telephone tapping. After twenty-nine meetings, Birkett drafted a report which he passed on to Parliament supporting the use of telephone taps and noting their effectiveness. On 9 December, a letter arrived from the Prime Minister offering him a peerage. He accepted, and his name appeared in the 1958 New Years Honours list, and was created Baron Birkett, of Ulverston in the County of Lancaster, and took his seat in the House of Lords on 20 February 1958. In the same year, he was awarded a LLD by the University of Cambridge, where the speaker said that Birkett was "endowed with such a voice as Cicero declared to be first requisite of an orator" and that "in our own time there had been no one more skilled in swaying the mind of a jury." In February 1959, he appeared on the first episode of the BBC television program Face to Face, where he was described as "one of the three or four greatest criminal lawyers of this century, and perhaps one of the three or four greatest criminal lawyers of all time". Outside politics and the law, he also served as Master of the Worshipful Company of Curriers four times.

Birkett tried to sit as regularly in the House of Lords as possible, and made his maiden speech on 8 April 1959 on the subject of crime in the United Kingdom. In May, he moved the first reading of the Obscene Publications Bill, which passed with support from both sides of the house. Privately, Birkett believed that "there will never be a satisfactory law in England about obscenity. Our 1959 Act is the best we have yet done." In 1961, he was again invited by the BBC to give a series of talks on the BBC Home Service, this time titled "Six Great Advocates". He picked Edward Marshall Hall, Patrick Hastings, Edward Clarke, Rufus Isaacs, Charles Russell and Thomas Erskine. He sat for the last time in the House of Lords on 8 February 1962, where he made a speech criticising an element of the Manchester Corporation Bill which would have water drained from Ullswater to meet the needs of the growing population in Manchester. His speech was "deeply felt and eloquent", and when the votes were announced, Birkett and his supporters had won by 70 votes to 36. The Ullswater Yacht Club now holds an annual Lord Birkett Memorial Trophy Race on the lake.

The next morning he complained of heart trouble, collapsed shortly after lunch and was taken to the hospital. The doctors discovered that he had ruptured an important blood vessel and immediate surgery was needed to fix it. The operation failed to fix the problem, and he died early in the morning on 10 February 1962. His son, Michael, succeeded him as Baron Birkett.

title: Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett


text:
HMS Formidable (67)

HMS Formidable was an Illustrious-class aircraft carrier ordered for the Royal Navy before the Second World War. After being completed in late 1940, she was briefly assigned to the Home Fleet before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet as a replacement for her crippled sister ship HMS Illustrious (87). Formidable's aircraft played a key role in the Battle of Cape Matapan in early 1941, and they subsequently provided cover for Allied ships and attacked Axis forces until their carrier was badly damaged by German dive bombers in May.

Assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in early 1942, Formidable covered the invasion of Diego Suarez in Vichy Madagascar in mid-1942 against the possibility of a sortie by the Japanese into the Indian Ocean. Formidable returned home for a brief refit before participating in Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa in November. She remained in the Mediterranean and covered the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy in 1943 before beginning a lengthy refit.

Formidable made several attacks on the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Tirpitz in Norway in mid-1944 as part of the Home Fleet. She was subsequently assigned to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) in 1945 where she played a supporting role during the Battle of Okinawa and later attacked targets in the Japanese Home Islands. The ship was used to repatriate liberated Allied prisoners of war and soldiers after the Japanese surrender and then ferried British personnel across the globe through 1946. She was placed in reserve the following year and sold for scrap in 1953.

Background and description
The Royal Navy's 1936 Naval Programme authorised the construction of two aircraft carriers. Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson, Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, was determined not to simply modify the previous unarmoured HMS Ark Royal (91) design. He believed that carriers could not be successfully defended by their own aircraft without some form of early-warning system. Lacking that, there was nothing to prevent land-based aircraft from attacking them, especially in confined waters like the North and Mediterranean Seas. This meant that the ship had to be capable of remaining in action after sustaining damage, and that her fragile aircraft had to be protected entirely from damage. The only way to do this was to completely armour the hangar in which the aircraft would shelter, but putting that much weight so high in the ship allowed only a single-storey hangar due to stability concerns. This halved the aircraft capacity of the Illustrious class compared with the older unarmoured carriers, trading offensive potential for defensive survivability.

Formidable had a length of 740 ft overall and 710 ft at the waterline. Her beam was 95 ft at the waterline and she had a draught of 28 ft at deep load. She displaced 23000 LT at standard load as completed. Her complement was approximately 1,299 men upon completion in 1940. The ship had three Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one shaft using steam supplied by six Admiralty 3-drum boilers. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 111000 shp, enough to give a maximum speed of 30.5 kn. On sea trials, Formidable reached 30.6 kn with 112018 shp. She carried a maximum of 4850 LT of fuel oil, which gave her a range of 10700 nmi at 10 kn.

The 753 ft armoured flight deck had a usable length of 670 ft, due to prominent "round-downs" at bow and stern to reduce air turbulence, and a maximum width of 95 ft. A single hydraulic aircraft catapult was fitted on the forward part of the flight deck. The ship was equipped with two unarmoured lifts on the centreline, each of which measured 45 by. The hangar was 456 ft long and had a maximum width of 62 ft. It had a height of 16 ft, which allowed storage of Lend-Lease Vought F4U Corsair fighters once their wingtips were clipped. The ship could accommodate up to 54 aircraft rather than the intended 36 after the adoption of "outriggers" on the flight deck during the war and the flattening of the "round-downs" that increased the usable length of the flight deck to 740 ft to facilitate the use of a permanent deck park. The additional crewmen, maintenance personnel and facilities needed to support the extra aircraft severely crowded the ship. She was provided with 50650 impgal of petrol.

Armament, electronics and protection
The ship's main armament consisted of sixteen quick-firing (QF) 4.5 in dual-purpose guns in eight twin-gun turrets that were mounted in sponsons on the side of the hull. The roofs of the gun turrets protruded above the level of the flight deck to allow them to fire across the deck at high elevations. The gun had a maximum range of 20760 yd. Her light anti-aircraft defences consisted of six octuple mounts for QF two-pounder ("pom-pom") anti-aircraft (AA) guns, two each fore and aft of the island and two in sponsons on the port side of the hull. The two-pounder gun had a maximum range of 6800 yd.

While under repair in late 1941, Formidable's light AA armament was augmented by the addition of 10 Oerlikon 20 mm autocannon in single mounts with a maximum range of 4800 yd. By the time of her last recorded refit in March 1944, she had exchanged one octuple "pom-pom" mount for a quadruple mount and had a total of 20 twin and 14 single 20 mm mounts. Before seeing combat against the Japanese, some were replaced by 40 mm Bofors AA guns as the 20 mm shell was unlikely to destroy a kamikaze before it hit the ship. The Bofors gun had a maximum range of 10750 yd. By the war's end the ship had all six of her original octuple "pom-pom" mounts, five single power-operated 40 mm mounts, seven single 40 mm "Boffin" mounts and 11 twin and 12 single 20 mm mounts.

Formidable was completed with a Type 79 early-warning radar. The specifics of the additional radars fitted during the war are not readily available, but she probably had, by the end of the war, a Type 277 surface-search/height-finding radar on top of the bridge and a Type 293 target-indicator radar on the foremast. She also probably mounted Type 279 and Type 281B early-warning radars, based on those fitted aboard her sister ship HMS Victorious (R38). In addition, Type 282 and Type 285 gunnery radars were mounted on the fire-control directors.

The Illustrious-class ships had a flight deck protected by 3 in of armour, and the internal sides and ends of the hangars were 4.5 in thick. The hangar deck itself was 2.5 in thick and extended the full width of the ship to meet the top of the 4.5-inch waterline armour belt. The belt was closed by 2.5-inch transverse bulkheads fore and aft. The underwater defence system was a layered system of liquid- and air-filled compartments backed by a 1.5 in splinter bulkhead.

Construction and service
Formidable was ordered as part of the 1937 Naval Programme from Harland & Wolff. She was laid down at their Belfast shipyard on 17 June 1937 as yard number 1007 and launched on 17 August 1939. Just before the launch ceremony was to begin, the wooden cradle supporting the ship collapsed, and the ship slid down the slipway while workmen were still underneath and around the ship. One spectator was killed by flying debris and at least 20 others were injured; Formidable, however, was not damaged. Because of the incident, the carrier was referred to as "The Ship That Launched Herself". She was commissioned on 24 November 1940.

After a very brief work up, the Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers of 826 Naval Air Squadron (NAS) and 829 NAS and the Fairey Fulmar fighters of 803 NAS flew aboard and she joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow on 12 December. Her stay there was brief as she, escorted by the heavy cruisers HMS Dorsetshire (40) and HMS Norfolk (78), sailed on 18 December to protect convoys and search for the GERMAN CRUISER Admiral Scheer, which had recently attacked Convoy HX 84 in the North Atlantic. They failed to find the commerce raider and escorted a convoy to Cape Town, South Africa, arriving on 22 January 1941. Four days later the ship was ordered north to replace her sister Illustrious with the Mediterranean Fleet after she had been badly damaged by German dive bombers. En route, she took the opportunity to attack Italian forces in Italian Somaliland and Eritrea. They sank the steamer SS Moncalieri on 12 February for the loss of two Albacores.

Battle of Cape Matapan
Several weeks later, she made a cautious transit of the recently mined Suez Canal and reached Alexandria on 10 March. 829 NAS was issued Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers to replace its losses. On 20 March Formidable escorted a convoy to Malta and flew off five aircraft for Crete while returning to Alexandria. On the morning of 27 March, major elements of the Italian Fleet were spotted en route to the sea lanes between Egypt and Greece and the carrier sailed later that afternoon with a force of three battleships, cruisers and destroyers under the command of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Reinforced by three Fulmars from 806 NAS, her air group numbered 13 Fulmars, 10 Albacores and 4 Swordfish. An Albacore spotted the leading Italian ships the next morning and six Albacores with torpedoes attacked ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Vittorio Veneto. Two German Junkers Ju 88 bombers intervened, but they were driven off by the escorting pair of Fulmars. The attack failed and another strike force of three Albacores and two Swordfish was prepared. Shortly after launching them at 12:22, Formidable was attacked by a pair of torpedo-carrying Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bombers to no effect. Around 14:50, one Albacore torpedoed the Italian battleship, although the other aircraft missed. The hit briefly knocked out her engines and caused heavy flooding. Another air strike of six Albacores and two Swordfish was launched at 17:30 to finish off the battleship, but they mistook the ITALIAN CRUISER Pola for it in the fading light.

The cruiser was struck by a torpedo from one of the aircraft, possibly from one of two Swordfish from 815 NAS from Maleme, Crete, that joined Formidable's aircraft before the attack. The mistake allowed the battleship to reach port. One Albacore was shot down by Vittorio Veneto and two others were forced to ditch after running out of fuel. Cunningham continued the pursuit of the Italian ships into the night. Unaware of the British pursuit, a squadron of cruisers and destroyers was ordered to return and help Pola. This squadron included Pola's sister ships, Zara and Fiume while Vittorio Veneto and the other ships continued to Taranto. In the darkness and without radar the Italian cruisers were surprised and the three battleships plus Formidable were able to close to 3800 yd and open fire. After three minutes, Fiume and Zara had been destroyed. Formidable which was third in line behind HMS Warspite (03) and HMS Valiant (1914) and ahead of HMS Barham (04) received the order to open fire with her 4.5-inch guns although the order was almost immediately countermanded and she was ordered out of line to starboard as soon as it was realised such a valuable ship was so close to the Italian ships. Some of Formidable's 4.5-inch guns fired a salvo in what was one of the few occasions in the Second World War in which an aircraft carrier fired her main armament at enemy warships.

On 18 April the Mediterranean Fleet sortied to bombard the primary Axis supply port of Tripoli and was attacked by a pair of SM.79 torpedo bombers from Rhodes. The torpedo-bombers were intercepted by a pair of Fulmars that damaged one bomber badly enough that it crash-landed back at its base, although one Fulmar was also forced to crash-land aboard Formidable. The next day Fulmars from 806 NAS shot down one CANT Z.1007 bomber flying from Cyrenica to Sicily and a pair of Junkers Ju 52 transports flying fuel to North Africa. On the morning of 21 April, the carrier's aircraft dropped flares to illuminate the port so it could be shelled by three battleships and a light cruiser. On the way home, a pair of Fulmars shot down a Dornier Do 24 flying boat.

During the Evacuation of Greece, Formidable provided air cover for Convoy GA 15 on 29 April. A Fulmar from 803 NAS was forced to ditch on 2 May before the carrier returned to Alexandria the next day. She put to sea on 6 May to provide air cover for the convoys involved in Operation Tiger. On the morning of 8 May, a pair of Fulmars claimed to have shot down a pair of Z.1007s searching for the fleet; one Fulmar failed to return. Later that afternoon, the fighters shot down four German Heinkel He 111 bombers at the cost of one Fulmar forced to crash-land. Two Albacores and a Fulmar crashed due to non-combat causes during the day. The next day a pair of Fulmars from 806 NAS badly damaged a Ju 88 reconnaissance bomber that crash-landed at its base in Sicily. As the fleet and the Tiger convoy approached Alexandria on 11 May, a pair of Fulmars attacked a formation of Ju 88s, damaging one bomber; one Fulmar and another Ju 88 were seen falling together towards the sea. Many of the Fulmars had been rendered unserviceable during the operation and Formidable was unable to provide air cover until they were repaired.

On 26 May the fleet sortied for a dawn raid on the base at Scarpanto the next day; the carrier mustered 12 Fulmars and 15 Albacores and Swordfish. Six Albacores and four Fulmars attacked the airbase, destroying one Ju 88 and damaging two others. Also damaged were an Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 transport and six Fiat CR.42 Falco fighters. Later that morning, as the fleet was returning to Egypt, the Fulmars shot down a He 111 and two Ju 88s for the loss of one Fulmar forced to land aboard the carrier and another forced to ditch. At 13:10 a formation of Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers was spotted from II./StG 2; based in Cyrenaica; they were searching for supply ships bound for Tobruk and not involved in the Battle of Crete. They hit Formidable with two 1000 kg bombs and blew the bow off her escorting destroyer HMS Nubian (F36). The bombs killed 12 men and wounded 10; one bomb passed completely through the outer part of the starboard forward flight deck and detonated before it hit the water, riddling the side of the hull with holes. A near miss also blew a large hole in the ship's starboard side underwater. The pair of Fulmars on Combat Air Patrol (CAP) shot down one of the Stukas after it had dropped its bomb and were able to land aboard shortly afterwards but take-offs could not be made until 18:00.

Formidable arrived at Alexandria the following day and disembarked her air group. She received emergency repairs before departing on 24 July for permanent repairs at Norfolk Navy Yard in the United States, 829 NAS flying aboard with its Albacores to provide anti-submarine patrols during the voyage. She arrived on 25 August, and the repairs were completed in early December. After several days of sea trials, she sailed for Britain in company with Illustrious on 12 December. During the night of 15/16 December, Illustrious collided with Formidable's stern, but neither ship was seriously damaged. She was repaired at Belfast from 21 December 1941 to 3 February 1942 and embarked the Albacores of 818 NAS and 820 NAS and the Grumman Martlet fighters of 888 NAS.

Indian Ocean Raid
Formidable sailed on 17 February to join the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, escorting a convoy to Freetown, Sierra Leone, en route. One of her passengers on the voyage was Admiral Sir James Somerville, about to take up his appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Fleet. The ship arrived at Colombo, Ceylon, on 24 March and Somerville hoisted his flag aboard the battleship HMS Warspite (03) that same day. Two days after Formidable's arrival, the Japanese First Air Fleet departed from Celebes (Sulawesi) in the Dutch East Indies to attack British forces in the Indian Ocean. Somerville was notified that the Japanese were planning to attack Ceylon on 28 March and ordered his fleet to assemble southeast of the island on 30 March to intercept them. Force A, consisting of Formidable, her sister HMS Indomitable (92) and Warspite, was ordered to Addu Atoll to refuel on 3 April after the Japanese failed to attack as the British expected. A Royal Air Force Consolidated Catalina flying boat spotted them within range of Ceylon just three and a half hours after Force A arrived at the atoll on 4 April. Too far away to intercept them before they could attack Ceylon, Force A departed about eleven hours after arrival on a course that Somerville thought would allow him to attack by night while avoiding detection during the day. One of Indomitable's Albacores spotted some of the Japanese carriers just before nightfall on 5 April, after the Japanese attacked Colombo, but further searches failed to locate them until 8 April when the Japanese were one day away from their intended target, Trincomalee, and still too far away to intercept. Force A refuelled at Addu Atoll on 9 April and was then ordered to Bombay to calm fears of a Japanese attack on India's west coast.

Somerville was still uneasy about the possibility of another attack on Ceylon and ordered Force A to Kilindini Harbour, Mombasa, Kenya, on 24 April. En route (5–7 May), Force A helped protect the invasion of Vichy Diego Suarez, Madagascar, against a Japanese attack. Formidable arrived at Kilindini on 10 May and remained there until she departed on 29 May bound for Colombo. The ship alternated between Colombo and Kilindini for the rest of her time with the Eastern Fleet. During this time she took part in Operation Stab, a decoy invasion of the Andaman Islands, with Illustrious. Rear-Admiral Denis Boyd hoisted his flag over the ship on 24 August and she departed six days later to return home for a refit. She arrived at Rosyth on 21 September and her refit lasted until 18 October. She sailed that day for Scapa Flow where she embarked 24 Martlets of 888 NAS and 893 NAS, 12 Albacores of 820 NAS and 6 Supermarine Seafire fighters of 885 NAS in preparation for the invasion of French North Africa.

Operation Torch
Assigned to Force H for Operation Torch, Formidable sailed on 30 October and provided cover in the Western Mediterranean against any attempt to interfere with the landings by Axis forces in Italy or France. Her Martlets shot down a pair of Ju 88s on 6 November and her Albacores laid a smoke screen in support of the landings at Algiers on 8 November. Two of her Albacores torpedoed and sank the GS U-331 on 17 November, after it had surrendered to a Supermarine Walrus amphibian which then departed the scene. She remained off the Algerian coast providing air support for Allied forces for the rest of the month, and one of her Seafires shot down a Ju 88 on 28 November.

Formidable was the only carrier in the Mediterranean after Torch until she was joined by Indomitable in mid-June 1943 as part of the buildup for the Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky). The two carriers were east of the island in a position to intercept any attempt by the Italian fleet to attack the landings. After Sicily was secured, Formidable became the first carrier to enter Grand Harbour, Malta, since Illustrious in January 1941. The latter ship joined Formidable as a replacement for the torpedoed Indomitable in Force H for the landings at Salerno (Operation Avalanche) on 9 September. As in Husky, their role was to protect the invasion fleet from interference by the Italian Navy. The fighters aboard the smaller carriers protecting the forces ashore suffered heavy attrition during the early days of the operation and Formidable transferred 2 Seafires and 15 Martlets to HMS Unicorn (I72) as replacements for their losses.

Norwegian operations
In October, the carrier was transferred to the Home Fleet and departed Gibraltar for Greenock on 13 October together with the battleship HMS King George V (41). Six days later she was in Scapa Flow to begin patrols to Iceland in company with the battleships HMS Howe (32) and HMS Anson (79) and the American carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) that lasted for the next three weeks. On 13 November she flew off her air group and sailed for Belfast to begin a lengthy refit, arriving on 19 November. The refit was completed in early June and the ship spent the rest of the month working up. The 18 Corsairs of 1841 NAS and the 24 Fairey Barracuda torpedo bombers of 827 NAS and 830 NAS flew aboard on 29 June and Formidable sailed for Scapa Flow to train with the carriers HMS Furious (47) and HMS Indefatigable (R10) before launching an attack on the Tirpitz in Kaafjord on 17 July (Operation Mascot). Her Corsairs escorted the strike aircraft from the other carriers to the target; one was shot down by German flak. A smoke screen prevented most of the Barracudas from seeing their target and they failed to hit the Tirpitz. Upon the ship's return to Scapa Flow, 827 and 830 NAS were replaced by 826 and 828 NAS, also flying Barracudas.

Formidable's air group was reinforced by a dozen Corsairs of 1842 NAS on 7 August in preparation for further attacks on Tirpitz (Operation Goodwood). The two Corsair squadrons were assigned to No. 6 Naval Fighter Wing aboard the carrier on 14 August. The first attack was on the morning of 22 August when Formidable launched 24 Corsairs and 12 Barracudas against the German battleship and nearby targets, all of which returned. A smoke screen again protected the Tirpitz and no damage was inflicted. Another attack scheduled for the afternoon had to be cancelled because of low clouds. A further attack could not be mounted until 24 August because of bad weather. The carrier contributed 23 Corsairs and 16 Barracudas, and 3 of the fighters were shot down over the target. The Tirpitz was lightly damaged by two bomb hits during this attack. A final attack was made five days later, again without effect.

The carrier arrived at Scapa Flow on 2 September where both Barracuda squadrons disembarked. She later sailed to Gibraltar, arriving on 21 September to begin a refit that, among other things, augmented her anti-aircraft outfit in preparation for operations in the Pacific. The Corsairs of No. 6 Naval Fighter Wing flew aboard on 1 January 1945, as did 18 Grumman TBF Avengers of 848 NAS. After several weeks of working up, Formidable departed Gibraltar on 14 January to join the British Pacific Fleet (BPF). She arrived in Sydney, the BPF's main base, on 10 March after several stops en route to refuel and embark stores and ammunition. On 20 March, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, commander of the BPF, inspected the ship and her crew.

Pacific operations
By this time Formidable's air group had a strength of 36 Corsairs and 18 Avengers. She arrived in San Pedro Bay in the Philippines on 4 April to await the return of the BPF from their efforts to neutralise airfields on the Sakishima Islands, between Okinawa and Formosa, as part of the preparations for the landings on Okinawa. Formidable was called forward six days later to join the 1st Aircraft Carrier Squadron (1st ACS) of the BPF on operations as a replacement for Illustrious, which was in poor mechanical shape. She arrived on 14 April and contributed aircraft when the attacks recommenced two days later. The commander of 1842 NAS was killed on the first day of operations while strafing buildings at Nobara airfield. After refuelling and two more days' attacks, the BPF sailed on 20 April for San Pedro Bay to replenish its ships for further operations.

The fleet returned to waters off Okinawa on 4 May and renewed its attacks on the airfields on the Sakishima Islands. Vice-Admiral Bernard Rawlings, second in command of the BPF, and his staff had determined that bombardment of Japanese gun positions by the heavy guns of battleships and cruisers might be a more effective method of destroying them than aerial attack. They detached King George V and Howe, as well as five cruisers, that morning to bombard Nobara and Hirara airfields of Miyako Island while fighters flew a protective CAP over them and spotted the fall of their shells. The loss of the most effective anti-aircraft ships was more important than anticipated and the Japanese were able to take advantage of the opportunity. The carrier had just launched two Corsairs for bombardment-spotting duties and the deck park of eleven Avengers was being moved forward to allow aircraft to land when an undetected Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter attacked at 11:31. The Zero first strafed the flight deck before any of Formidable's guns could open fire and then turned sharply to dive into the forward flight deck despite the ship's hard turn to starboard. The fighter released a bomb shortly before it would have impacted the deck and was destroyed by the bomb's blast, although the remnants of the Zero struck Formidable.

The detonation of the bomb put a large dent in the flight deck, around 24 ft by 20 ft and 2 ft deep, with a 2 sqft hole in the center and much spalling from the underside. It killed 2 officers and 6 ratings, wounding 55 other crewmen. A fragment from the flight deck armour penetrated the hangar deck armour and passed through the centre boiler uptakes, the centre boiler room itself, and an oil tank before it came to rest in the inner bottom. The fragment severed the steam pipes in the centre boiler room and forced its evacuation, cutting the ship's speed to 14 kn. The blast on the flight deck blew the Avenger closest to it over the side and set another one on fire. Shrapnel from the blast peppered the island, causing the bulk of the casualties, and severed many electrical cables, including those for most of the ship's radars. The fires on the flight deck and in the hangar were extinguished by 11:55, and seven Avengers and a Corsair which were damaged beyond repair were dumped over the side. The bomb struck at the intersection of three armour plates and dented the plates over an area 20 by. The dent was filled by wood and concrete and covered by thin steel plates tack-welded to the deck so that she was able to operate aircraft by 17:00 and steam at a speed of 24 kn. Thirteen of her Corsairs had been airborne at the time of the attack and they operated from the other carriers for a time. The damage to the boiler room and its steam pipes was repaired so that the centre boilers could be reconnected to the engines at 02:00 the next day.

The bombardment significantly reduced Japanese aerial activity on 5 May, although several of Formidable's Corsairs, temporarily operating from her sister Victorious, shot down a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft at an altitude of 30000 ft. That evening the fleet withdrew to refuel and was back on station on 8 May although heavy rains forced the cancellation of the planned air strikes. On 9 May, another kamikaze pilot, Yoshinari Kurose, penetrated the CAP at low altitude and crashed his plane into Formidable's flight deck and deck park at 17:05. The impact did little damage to the ship, but caused an explosion and large fire that destroyed 18 of her aircraft. One crewman, Petty Officer George Hinkins, was killed and four were wounded. The carrier was able to resume operations fifty minutes later, but with only four Avengers and eleven Corsairs still serviceable. Rawlings decided to immediately withdraw to give Victorious and Formidable more time to make repairs and to replenish their depleted air groups. He also revised the deployment of the BPF to counter the new low-level tactics of the Japanese by stationing the battleships and cruisers closer to the carriers, keeping the carriers closer together, and positioning radar picket cruisers in the most likely directions of attack.

The BPF returned to action on 12 May and no Japanese aircraft were seen or detected that day or the next. One of Formidable's Avengers made a successful landing aboard Indomitable with only one landing gear leg extended and no flaps on 13 May. The BPF continued its routine of two days of operations alternating with one or two days to replenish its ships for the next several days with minimal interference by the Japanese. On the morning of 18 May, armourers were loading ammunition into aircraft when a Corsair's guns were accidentally fired into an Avenger, which caught fire. The overhead fire sprinklers were immediately turned on, but the fire could not be extinguished for nearly an hour, not least because the electric motors driving the steel fire curtains had been damaged in the first kamikaze attack and could only be repaired by a dockyard. Twenty-one Corsairs and seven Avengers were either damaged or destroyed in the incident. Rawlings decided to detach Formidable early to give her extra time for repairs in Sydney and she was ordered to depart on 22 May.

Operations off the Japanese coast
The ship arrived on 31 May and was taken into the Captain Cook Dock at the Garden Island Dockyard for repairs, with the dock's labour force being augmented with workers from the Cockatoo Island Dockyard. Two of the three armour plates damaged on 4 May were repaired, but the third had to be replaced by two 1.5-inch high-quality steel plates as there were not any armour plates of the required thickness available in Australia. Repairs were also made to the ship's machinery, boilers and electrical systems. The island was enlarged with an admiral's staff cabin and a radar workshop. Rear-Admiral Sir Philip Vian, commander of the 1st ACS, transferred his flag to Formidable when her repairs were complete.

Together with Victorious and King George V, Formidable departed Sydney on 28 June, bound for the BPF's advance base at Manus Island, in the Admiralty Islands. Her air group now consisted of 36 Corsairs, 12 Avengers and 6 Grumman F6F Hellcats of 1844 NAS. Two of the latter aircraft were photoreconnaissance versions. No. 6 Naval Fighter Wing was absorbed into the 2nd Carrier Air Group that controlled all of the aircraft on the carrier. The ships arrived on 4 July, refuelled, and departed two days later to join the American Third Fleet, already operating off the Japanese Home Islands. The BPF rendezvoused with the Americans on 16 July and commenced operations the next morning. Formidable flew off 28 Corsairs bound north of Tokyo on 17 July, but some of them were unable to locate their targets because of bad weather. Twenty-four Corsairs attacked targets near Tokyo the next day, before more bad weather halted flying operations until 24–25 July, when the BPF's aircraft attacked targets near Osaka and the Inland Sea, crippling the escort carrier JAPANESE AIRCRAFT CARRIER Kaiyo. After replenishing, airstrikes resumed on 28 and 30 July, sinking the escort JAPANESE ESCORT SHIP Okinawa near Maizuru. A combination of bad weather, refuelling requirements and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima delayed the resumption of air operations until 9 August.

During the morning, Formidable flew off a fighter sweep of a dozen Corsairs followed an hour later by Avengers that attacked Matsushima Air Field. A second fighter sweep, led by Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray, RCNVR, senior pilot of 1841 NAS, was diverted to attack Japanese warships located in Onagawa Wan, Miyagi Prefecture, with his eight Corsairs. Gray spotted two escort ships and led his aircraft into the attack. Intense flak set his engine on fire, but Gray continued his attack, skip bombing a 500 lb bomb into the Etorofu-class escort Amakusa. The ship sank within five minutes with the loss of 157 lives. Gray's aircraft rolled inverted shortly after releasing the bomb and crashed into the sea; he did not survive. Gray was later posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).

The attacks were repeated the next day, sinking two warships and numerous small merchantmen and destroying numerous railway locomotives and parked aircraft. The BPF had been scheduled to withdraw after 10 August to prepare for Operation Olympic, the invasion of Kyushu scheduled for November, and the bulk of the force, including Formidable, departed for Manus on 12 August. The Japanese surrender a few days later ended the war.

Post-war actions
Formidable arrived at Sydney on 24 August, and had her hangar refitted to accommodate Allied ex-prisoners of war and soldiers for repatriation. Having left her air group behind to maximise the numbers of passengers she could carry, the ship arrived at Manila on 30 September, where she loaded over 1,000 Australian former prisoners of war on 4 October and unloaded them at Circular Quay in Sydney on 21 October. She departed three days later, bound for Karavia Bay, New Britain, where she loaded 1,254 men of the Indian Army and continued on to Singapore where she loaded Indian ex-PoWs before delivering them to Bombay. There Formidable loaded an Indian Army infantry battalion for transport to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies to maintain law and order until Dutch colonial troops could take over. The ship then loaded elements of the 7th Australian Division and their equipment at Tarakan Island, Borneo, and picked up more Australians at Morotai; she arrived at Sydney on 6 December.

Vice-Admiral Vian addressed the ship's crew on 27 December before she departed the following day with 800 naval personnel embarked for passage home. She arrived at Portsmouth on 5 February 1946. The dockyard there fitted her with more permanent accommodations in the hangar for more trooping duties and she loaded 480 personnel before departing for Sydney on 2 March. Formidable arrived there a month later and loaded 1,336 naval personnel as well as some Wrens and VAD nurses. She sailed on 12 April, stopping in Colombo to refuel and drop off 576 naval personnel, before arriving in Devonport on 9 May. She made her next voyage to Bombay and Colombo between 15 June and 25 July. The ship loaded 114 officers, 958 ratings and 11 VAD nurses in Singapore in August and another 319 ratings in Trincomalee before stopping in Malta to load 41 men of the Merchant Navy. Formidable made her last trooping voyage between Portsmouth and Singapore, delivering 1,000 Royal Marine Commandos to the latter, between 3 December and 3 February 1947.

Decommissioning and disposal
In early March 1947, Formidable steamed north to Rosyth for a brief refit before being reduced to reserve. She was paid off on 12 August and a later survey revealed that her wartime damage and poor material shape meant the ship was beyond economical repair at a time when money was very tight. She was towed to Spithead in mid-1949 and then to Portsmouth Royal Dockyard in November 1952. Formidable was sold for scrap in January 1953 and towed to Inverkeithing where she was broken up.

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title: HMS Formidable (67)


text:
Shot glass

A shot glass is a glass originally designed to hold or measure spirits or liquor, which is either imbibed straight from the glass ("a shot") or poured into a cocktail ("a drink"). An alcoholic beverage served in a shot glass and typically consumed quickly, in one gulp, may also be known as a "shooter" or “shot”.

Shot glasses decorated with a wide variety of toasts, advertisements, humorous pictures, or other decorations and words are popular souvenirs and collectibles, especially as merchandise of a brewery.

Name origin
The word shot, meaning a drink of alcohol, has been used since at least the 17th century, while it is known to have referred specifically to a small drink of spirits in the U.S. since at least the 1920s. The phrase shot glass has been in use since at least the 1940s.

Earliest examples
Some of the earliest whiskey glasses in America from the late 1700s to early 1800s were called "whiskey tasters" or "whiskey tumblers" and were hand blown. They are thick, similar to today's shot glasses, but will show a pontil mark or scar on the bottom, or a cupped area on the bottom where the pontil mark was ground and polished off. Some of these glasses even have hand-applied handles and decorations hand crafted using a grinding wheel.

In the early to mid-1800s, glass blowers began to use molds and several different patterns of "whiskey tasters" in several different colors were being made in molds. These glasses are also thick like today's shot glass but they will have rough pontiled bottoms from being hand blown into the mold. By the 1870s to 1890s as glass making technology improved, the rough pontiled bottoms largely disappeared from glasses and bottles.

Jigger

A jigger, also known as a measure, is a bartending tool used to measure liquor, which is typically then poured into a glass or cocktail shaker.

The term jigger in the sense of a small cup or measure of spirits or wine originates in the U.S. in the early 19th century. Many references from the 1800s describe the "jigger boss" providing jiggers of whiskey to Irish immigrant workers who were digging canals in the U.S. Northeast.

The style of double-ended jigger common today, made of stainless steel with two unequal sized opposing cones in an hourglass shape, was patented in 1893 by Cornelius Dungan of Chicago. Typically, one cone measures a regulation single shot, and the other some fraction or multiple—with the actual sizes depending on local laws and customs.

In the U.S. up until Prohibition, a jigger was commonly known to be about half a gill, or 2 USfloz, but starting in the latter part of the 20th century, it is typically interpreted to be 1.5 USfloz. The jiggers used in the U.K. are typically 25 ml or sometimes 35 ml. Jiggers may also hold other amounts and ratios, and can vary depending on the region and date of manufacture. Many jiggers may also have fractional markings on the inside of the bowl, to facilitate smaller measures of liquid.

Measuring shot glass
A shot glass graduated in smaller units such as half-ounces, teaspoons, tablespoons, or millilitres. They are useful for precise measurement of cocktail ingredients, as well as in cooking recipes that call for multiples of a smaller unit (e.g. several teaspoons), allowing the dispensing of the amount in a single measure.

title: Shot glass


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Illustrious-class aircraft carrier

The Illustrious class was a class of aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that included some of the most important British warships in the Second World War. They were laid down in the late 1930s as part of the rearmament of British forces in response to the emerging threats of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan.

The Illustrious class comprised four vessels: HM Ships Illustrious, Formidable, Victorious and Indomitable. The last of these was built to a modified design with a second, half-length, hangar deck below the main hangar deck. Each of these ships played a prominent part in the battles of the Second World War. Victorious took part in the pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck, Illustrious and Formidable played prominent parts in the battles in the Mediterranean during 1940 and 1941 and all three took part in the large actions of the British Pacific Fleet in 1945.

The later two ships of the Implacable class were also built to modified designs to carry larger air wings. HMS Implacable (R86) and HMS Indefatigable (R10) both had two hangar levels, albeit with a limited 14 ft head room.

Design and concept
The Illustrious class was designed within the restrictions of the Second London Naval Treaty, which limited carrier size to an upper limit of 23,000 tons. They were different in conception to the Royal Navy's only modern carrier at the time, their predecessor HMS Ark Royal, and what may be described as their nearest American contemporaries, the Yorktown and Essex class carriers. The Illustrious class followed the Yorktown but preceded the Essex, the latter being designed after the US abandonment of the Second London Naval Treaty and its tonnage limitations.

Where other designs emphasised large air groups as the primary means of defence, the Illustrious class relied on their anti-aircraft armament and the passive defence provided by an armoured flight deck for survival, resulting in a reduced aircraft complement. Other carriers had armour carried on lower decks (e.g. the hangar deck or main deck); the unprotected flight deck and the hangar below it formed part of the superstructure, and were unprotected against even small bombs. However, the hangar could be made larger and thus more aircraft could be carried, but the differences in aircraft capacity between these carriers and their United States Navy (USN) counterparts is largely due to the some 100-foot-longer overall length of the US designs, and the USN's operational doctrine, which allowed for a permanent deck park of aircraft to augment their hangar capacity. Illustrious's hangar was 82% as large as USS Enterprise (CV-6)'s, but Enterprise typically carried 30% of her aircraft capacity in her deck park. Indomitables two hangars were actually larger than Enterprises, but she carried fewer aircraft because she did not have a large permanent deck park. In 1944/45 RN carriers began to carry a permanent deck park of similar size to their USN counterparts, and this increased their aircraft complement from 36 to an eventual 57 aircraft in the single-hangar carriers, and from 48 up to 81 in the double-hangar, 23,400-ton Implacable design, compared to 90–110 for the 27,500-ton US Essex class.

In the Illustrious class, armour was carried at the flight deck level—which became the strength deck—and formed an armoured box-like hangar that was an integral part of the ship's structure. However, to make this possible without increasing the displacement it was necessary to reduce the overhead height of the hangars to 16 ft in the Illustrious class hangars and 14 ft in the upper hangar of the Indomitable and 16 ft in her lower hangar; these compared unfavourably to the 17 ft of the Yorktown class, 17 ft in Essex class and 20 ft in Lexington class. This restricted operations with larger aircraft designs, particularly post-war.

This armour scheme was designed to withstand 6" cruiser shellfire or 500 pound bombs (and heavier bombs dropped from low height or which struck at an angle); in the Home and Mediterranean theatres it was likely that the carriers would operate within the range of shore-based aircraft, which could carry heavier bombs than their carrier-based equivalents. The flight deck had an armoured thickness of 3 inches, closed by 4.5-inch sides and bulkheads. There were 3-inch strakes on either side extending from the box sides to the top edge of the main side belt, which was of 4.5 inches. The main belt protected the machinery, petrol storage, magazines and aerial weapon stores. The lifts were placed outside the hangar, at either end, with access through sliding armoured doors in the end bulkheads.

Later in the war it was found that bombs which penetrated and detonated inside the armoured hangar could cause structural deformation, as the latter was an integral part of the ship's structure.

Pre-war doctrine held that the ship's own firepower, rather than its aircraft, were to be relied upon for protection, since in the absence of radar, fighters were unlikely to intercept incoming attackers before they could release their weapons. Accordingly, the Illustrious class was given an extremely heavy anti-aircraft armament. The armament was similar to Ark Royal with twin 4.5 inch turrets (in a new "between-decks" or countersunk design) arranged on the points of a quadrant. The guns were mounted sufficiently high so that they could fire across the decks; de-fuelled aircraft would be stowed in the hangar for protection during aerial attack. The Illustrious class were fitted with four HACS controlled High Angle Director Towers, for fire control of her 4.5 inch guns. Illustrious pioneered the use of radar to vector carrier-borne fighters onto attacking or shadowing aircraft, and a Fairey Fulmar fighter from Illustrious achieved the first radar directed kill on 2 September 1940.

Fate of the class
All four early ships were hard worked during the Second World War, with Illustrious and Formidable suffering and surviving heavy damage. Like their contemporary USS Enterprise (CV-6), they fought a long and consuming war, and, despite significant overhauls and repair of battle damage, were worn out by 1946, and were scrapped in the mid-1950s. Due to a variety of factors including Britain's dire post-war finances, and the consequent reductions in the size of the Royal Navy post-war modernization was limited to just the last of the class; ''Victorious. Over'' eight years between 1950 and 1957 she was extensively rebuilt incorporating modern equipment (angled flight deck, steam catapults) to enable her to operate Cold War-era jet aircraft. Although Victorious completed a refit in 1967, a minor fire with a manpower shortage and reduction in the naval budgets mean she was not recommissioned but retired in 1968 and sold for scrap. Indomitable was given an extensive refit, including new boilers, from 1948 to 1950, then served as flagship of the Home Fleet and also saw service in the Mediterranean. She suffered a hangar deck petrol explosion and fire in early 1953. She was placed in reserve after Queen Elizabeth II's October 1953 Coronation Review and was then scrapped in 1955.

title: Illustrious-class aircraft carrier


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Francis Biddle

Francis Beverley Biddle (May 9, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II. He also served as the primary American judge during Nuremberg trials following World War II and a United States circuit judge of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Early life and education
Biddle was born in Paris, France, while his family was living abroad. He was one of four sons of Frances Brown (née Robinson) and Algernon Sydney Biddle, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School of the Biddle family. He was also a great-great-grandson of Edmund Randolph (1753–1813) the seventh Governor of Virginia, the second United States Secretary of State, and the first United States Attorney General. He graduated from Groton School, where he participated in boxing. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1909 from Harvard College and a Bachelor of Laws in 1911 from Harvard Law School.

Career
Biddle first worked as a private secretary to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. from 1911 to 1912. He spent the next 27 years by practicing law in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1912, he supported the presidential candidacy of former US President Theodore Roosevelt's renegade Bull Moose Party. He was a special assistant to the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1922 to 1926.

During World War I he served as Private in the United States Army from October 23 to November 30, 1918. After he enlisted, he was detailed to the Field Artillery Central Officer's training school at Camp Taylor, Kentucky but the war ended during his training and he was discharged.

Roosevelt administration
In the 1930s, Biddle was appointed to a number of important governmental roles. In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated him to become Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. On February 9, 1939, Roosevelt nominated Biddle to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to a seat vacated by Joseph Buffington. The United States Senate confirmed Biddle on February 28, 1939, and he received his commission on March 4, 1939. He served only one year in the role before resigning on January 22, 1940, to become the United States Solicitor General. This also turned out to be a short-lived position when Roosevelt nominated him to the position of Attorney General of the United States in 1941. During this time he also served as chief counsel to the Special Congressional Committee to Investigate the Tennessee Valley Authority from 1938 to 1939.

World War II
During World War II, Biddle used the Espionage Act of 1917 to attempt to shut down "vermin publications", which included Father Coughlin's publication entitled Social Justice. Biddle prosecuted several prominent left-wing individuals and organizations under the Smith Act. In 1941, he authorized the prosecution of 29 Socialist Workers Party members in a move that was criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union. Under the act, he also tried unsuccessfully to have trade unionist Harry Bridges deported.

In 1942, Biddle became involved in a case in which a military tribunal appointed by Roosevelt tried eight captured Nazi agents for espionage and for planning sabotage in the United States as part of the German Operation Pastorius. Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Royall challenged Roosevelt's decision to prosecute the Germans in military tribunals by citing Ex parte Milligan (1866), a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not establish military tribunals to try civilians in areas that civilian courts were functioning, even during wartime. Biddle responded that the Germans were not entitled to have access to civilian courts because of their status as unlawful combatants. The US Supreme Court upheld that decision in Ex parte Quirin (1942) by ruling that the military commission that was set up to try the Germans was lawful. On August 3, 1942, all eight were found guilty and sentenced to death. Five days later, six of the eight were executed in the electric chair on the third floor of the District of Columbia jail. The other two were given prison terms since they had willingly turned their comrades over to the FBI. In 1948, both men were released from prison and returned to Germany.

Japanese American Internment
Biddle was one of the few top officials, along with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes, who opposed the wartime internment of Japanese Americans from the start.

In 1943, after the internment had already taken place, he asked Roosevelt for the camps to be closed: "The present practice of keeping loyal American citizens in concentration camps for longer than is necessary is dangerous and repugnant to the principles of our government." Roosevelt resisted, however, and the camps would not be closed for another year. In a postwar memoir, Biddle wrote that "American citizens of Japanese origin were not even handled like aliens of the other enemy nationalities—Germans and Italians—on a selective basis, but as untouchables, a group who could not be trusted and had to be shut up only because they were of Japanese descent."

African American civil rights
Biddle strengthened his department's efforts on behalf of African-American civil rights by instructing United States attorneys to direct their prosecutions against forced labor in the South away from the usual practice of charging "peonage", which required them to find an element of debt, toward bringing charges of "slavery" and "involuntary servitude" against employers and local officials. On February 10, 1942, Biddle ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to probe into the lynching of Cleo Wright in Sikeston, Missouri, which was the United States' first federal investigation of a civil rights case.

Truman administration
At U.S. President Harry S. Truman's request, Biddle resigned after Roosevelt's death. Shortly afterward, Truman appointed Biddle as a judge at the Nuremberg trials. Tom C. Clark, Biddle's successor, told the story that Biddle was the first government official whose resignation Truman sought and that it was quite a difficult task. Biddle was amused by Truman's stammering, but after it was over, he threw his arm around the President and said, "See, Harry, now that wasn't so hard."

In 1947, he was nominated by Truman as the US representative on the United Nations Economic and Social Council. However, after the Republican Party refused to act on the nomination, Biddle asked Truman to withdraw his name.

In 1950, he was named as chairman of the Americans for Democratic Action, a position that he held for three years. One decade later, he wrote two volumes of memoirs: A Casual Past in 1961 and In Brief Authority in 1962. His final position came as chairman of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Commission from which he resigned in 1965.

Personal life
On April 27, 1918, Biddle was married to the poet Katherine Garrison Chapin. They had two sons:

 * Edmund Randolph Biddle (1920–2000), who married Frances M. Disner
 * Garrison Chapin Biddle (1923–1930)

Biddle died on October 4, 1968, of a heart attack at his summer home in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, at the age of 82. Biddle was interred at the St. Thomas' Church Cemetery in Whitemarsh Township, Pennsylvania.

Writing
Biddle's writing skills had long been in evidence prior to the release of his memoirs. In 1927, he wrote a novel about Philadelphia society, The Llanfear Pattern. In 1942, he wrote of his close association with Oliver Wendell Holmes 30 years earlier with a biography of the jurist, Mr. Justice Holmes, which was adapted into a 1946 Broadway play and a 1950 film entitled The Magnificent Yankee. Democratic Thinking and the War was published in 1944. His 1949 book, The World's Best Hope, looked at the role of the United States in the post-war era. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.

In popular culture
Biddle was portrayed by Len Cariou in the 2000 miniseries Nuremberg. Biddle was also the subject of the 2004 play Trying by Joanna McClelland Glass, who had served as Biddle's personal secretary from 1967 to 1968.

title: Francis Biddle