The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

widespread break in morale. As Josef Goebbels well knew in Germany,
propaganda was a key weapon of a modern war. The importance of the will
of the people, in both a totalitarian state and a democracy, could not be
underestimated.
There had been another key appointment in Churchill’s new Government,
and one that brought a glimmer of hope to Air Chief Marshal Dowding, and
that was Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, as the first ever Minister for
Aircraft Production, complete with his new ministry. A Canadian from
Ontario, he had made his first million, as a financier and investment banker,
before he was thirty, then, in 1910, when still only thirty-one, had moved to
England and become a Liberal Unionist MP, whilst at the same time buying
large shares in the Rolls-Royce motor car and engine company. He sold out
a few years later, and then embarked on building a hugely successful
newspaper empire, which included the London Evening Standard and Daily
Express.
By 1917, he was a peer, choosing ‘Beaverbrook’ after an area near his
boyhood home, having played a key role in ousting Asquith as Prime
Minister and helping Lloyd George to take over. By 1918, he was the first
Minister of Information, and, although it was a short-lived post, throughout
the 1920s and 1930s, with his ever-increasing power as the first real press
baron of Fleet Street, his influence remained considerable.
He was also a close friend of long standing with Winston Churchill. As
with all friendships, the two had drifted apart at times and they by no means
saw eye to eye on everything. Beaverbrook had been notoriously opposed
to war right up until the last moment, for example, but since then a closer
relationship had returned. Back in November, Churchill, then at the
Admiralty, had urged Chamberlain to bring his friend into the Government.
‘When I talk to him,’ Churchill wrote, ‘I have a feeling of knowledge,
force, experience, which I do not find – at my age – with most I meet. We
need this kind of thing.’
Chamberlain had not heeded this advice, but by 10 May 1940 Churchill
had decided that, personally, he very much did need this kind of thing. For
all his gregariousness, Churchill was, in many ways, something of a solitary
figure. He had many colleagues with whom he shared a close working
relationship, but very few bosom friends. Most of his greatest pals were
gone. Max was the only person in the political world with whom Churchill