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

Finally, there was category 6, applied to any aircraft which would take
longer than thirty-six hours to repair and which needed to be moved by
road. Responsibility for transporting damaged aircraft to depots and CRUs
was left to No. 50 Maintenance Unit.
All members of the CRO and Maintenance Units were as indoctrinated
with the need for long hours and speed of response as those working in
aircraft production. And, once again, Beaverbrook did not care whose feet
he trod on in order to achieve results. He took over all aircraft storage units,
normally carefully controlled by the Air Ministry, and his agents scurried
around putting MAP padlocks on all the hangar doors. He even decided
which aircraft would go where, a decision reached in consultation with
Dowding and his commanders, such as Park. The Air Ministry was
bypassed entirely. The effect was electric. In addition to nearly 300 new
aircraft a week, in the last two weeks of June more than 250 were repaired
and sent back to squadrons. In just a few weeks, the production of new
aircraft had risen by 62 per cent, new engines by 33 per cent, repaired
aircraft by a staggering 186 per cent, and repaired engines by 159 per cent.
It was an astonishing turn-around.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Archibald Sinclair, Air Chief Marshal Newall
and others at the Air Ministry did not take well to this whirlwind brand of
unilateral decision-making, particularly on a number of matters such as
stores and allocation where they believed they were better qualified for the
job. But if Beaverbrook felt he was not getting the cooperation he required,
then he simply threatened to resign, as he did on 30 June. ‘I cannot get
information which I require about supplies or equipment,’ he wrote to the
Prime Minister, putting on record what he had undoubtedly told him face to
face. ‘I cannot get permission to carry out operations essential to
strengthening our reserves to the uttermost in readiness for the day of
invasion…The breach which has thus been made between the Air Ministry
and myself cannot be healed, although I have made many efforts.’ Of
course, Churchill refused to accept his resignation. The Air Ministry was
told to be more co-operative. Beaverbrook had won even greater autonomy.
‘Beaverbrook was an unpleasant bastard,’ said Alex Henshaw, one of the
principal Spitfire test pilots. ‘But he was the right man in the right place at
the right time.’
Funnily enough, Hitler would have approved of Beaverbrook. Going
behind the backs of those on the same side, getting on the nerves of