September 11, 2013

Finest Hour 104, Autumn 1999

Page 08

FH 89: Contrary to Henry Crooks’s account on page 49, Gerald McCue writes, “what Cockroft and Walton did in 1933 was very important, but it was ‘splitting the atom,’ not ‘fission.’ They bombarded the relatively simple nuclei of lithium by injecting energy chipped off nuclei of hydrogen. Not until 1938 did German chemists Hahn and Meitner demonstrate that uranium nuclei could be blown apart into medium weight nuclei, with copious release of energy (fission) and a chain reaction, either controllable or explosive.”

FH 95: In “Churchill and the Litigious Lord,” we converted sterling to dollars throughout at $1.70 to £1 but one conversion (“over £125,000 or $800,000 in current value”) should read “$200,000.” Thanks for this to Robert Ledermann.

FH 102: In “Churchill and the Art of the Statesman-Writer,” page 19, William Manchester says of Churchill’s youth: “One percent of [Britain’s] population— some 33,000 people—owned two-thirds of its wealth.” Albert Sheridan reminds us that 33,000 is one percent of 3.3 million. But Britain’s population at Churchill’s birth was closer to 33 million, in which case one-tenth of one percent of her population controlled two-thirds of Britain’s wealth.

In “Armorial Bearings,” page 22, column 2, line 1, end of sentence: for “Sable” read “Sable [and not as illustrated].” On page 23, column 1, line 13: for “add” read “omit.” Author Paul Courtenay writes: “In the colour transparency of Charles Lusteds painting, I failed to notice that he used incorrect tinctures, so my script does not describe Lusted’s cover picture. In layman’s language he has shown two wreaths, both red and black. But as depicted in my Figure 6, only the dexter (left hand side from the view of the observer) wreath should appear, and it should be white and black.”

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FH 103: In our list of residences (page 46) we omitted the last two temporary residences of Winston Churchill: Hosey Rigge, Westerham (1923-24; nicknamed “Coscy Pigge” by WSC); and 67 Westminster Gardens (Jul.-Oct. 1945, loaned to the Churchills by Duncan Sandys). In C. P. Snow’s essay, page 14, we said Pamela Plowden in 1904 married Victor Lytton, “later the Earl of Lytton.” Charles W. Snyder, biographer of the first Earl Lytton, tells us that Victor was already an Earl (he inherited in 1891) when he married Pamela Plowden in 1902.