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

26
Getting Ready
AS ONE OF THE PRIME Minister’s secretaries, Jock Colville was fortunate
enough to meet and get to know most of Britain’s war leadership. For an
intelligent and observant young man such as himself, it was fascinating to
be allowed to listen to the debates and arguments of the Cabinet and Chiefs
of Staff, or to find himself, as he did, quite casually on the evening of 18
June, talking to men such as Professor Frederick Lindemann, a brilliant
scientist, trusted friend of Churchill’s and now the PM’s Chief Scientific
Adviser. For a brief while they gossiped on the steps of the Foreign Office,
discussing Général de Gaulle.
Later, after dinner, Jock returned to No. 10, where Churchill’s inner
circle was gathered. Everyone was in a bad mood, unsurprising in light of
the collapse in France. Beaverbrook told Jock that Sinclair was a hopeless
Air Minister and that the whole Air Ministry was rotten. General Ismay,
meanwhile, was complaining that the Chiefs of Staff were too old and too
slow. The last straw for Churchill that day was the non-arrival of the
morning newspapers, which he liked to see the night before. In his
exasperation he spilled his whisky and soda over some of his papers, which
put him in an even worse temper.
Yet despite these gripes, tensions and personal animosities, and despite
the many concerns still facing Britain, the month of June was
unquestionably giving her a fighting chance. The clock was ticking but,
with every hour and day that passed, so Britain was strengthening her
defences, not least with the addition of new fighter aircraft.
Even after just a fortnight in the job, Lord Beaverbrook’s Ministry for
Aircraft Production (MAP) had made startling improvements. In the first
week he took over, around 130 new aircraft of all types had been built. By
the third week of May, that had risen to 200, and by the last week of May it
was around 280. Throughout June, weekly aircraft production remained at
somewhere between 250 and 300 aircraft. In the week of 2–8 June, for
example, eighty new Hurricanes and twenty-two Spitfires were built; in all,
446 fighter aircraft were produced in June. He had achieved this by