Hankey, Lord

Lord Chatfield, It Might Happen Again (London Heinemann, 1947), pp. 160, 179-82. Roskill, Hankey, vol. Ill, p.364. 

According to a newspaper report,131 J. E. Edmonds, one of the two authors of the British Manual of Military Law, stated that the 1944 revision of the Manual had been made without consulting or even notifying the author the other author, Oppenheim, had already passed away at the time. Therefore, conversely, the information provided by Lord Hankey of the British House of Lords is not really surprising namely, now that England has no so-called war criminals left to convict, the revision of 1944 has quietly disappeared from reprints of the Manual of Military Law, leaving only the old text of 1929, which does provide for the exemption of liability in the presence of higher orders.132... 

In September 1939, Hankey - now with a seat in the House of Lords - was brought into the War Cabinet as Minister Without Portfolio. His influence over Neville Chamberlain had never been greater, and to Hankey the Prime Minister confided the job of Britain s biological warfare overlord with the proviso, recalled... 

Z7 - PRO, CAB 1Z0/78Z. Memo from Lord Hankey to Winston Churchill, 6 December 1941. 

Churchill received Hankey s memo on Sunday, 7 December — the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Two weeks later he flew to the USA for the first Washington Conference leaving the whole subject in the hands of the Chiefs of Staff. On 2 January 1942 the Defence Committee met in Churchill s absence and discussed biological warfare. The minutes are a model of official discretion Lord Hankey was authorised to take such measures as he might from time to time deem appropriate to enable us without undue delay to... 

Lord Hankey had by now left the chairmanship of the Bacteriological Warfare Committee (although he would return to it after the war). In his place was Ernest Brown, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. On 8 March, after what he described as the most secret consultations with my military advisors , Churchill ordered Brown to place an order with the Americans for half a million anthrax bombs Pray let me know when they will be available. We should regard it as a first instalment. ... 

R. Harris and J. Paxman,i4 Higher Form of Killing, p. 88. See also Lord Hankey to Churchill, 6 December 1941, PRO, PREM 3/65. 

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