THE AEROPLANE News from August 1940

Ben Dunnell looks back 80 years to see how The Aeroplane covered the momentous events of 1940

2 August 1940

Factory output was much in mind, following a BBC broadcast on 24 July by Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production. The former press baron’ talk was a rousing paean of praise for the industry, whose workers he called “the liveliest of all our people” However, The Aeroplane’s editor Edwin Colston Shepherd noted, “there seemed to be more substance than in fact the speech contained” As we shall discuss in one of our Battle of Britain features next month, the extent to which Beaverbrook can be given credit for the crucial increase in output during the summer of 1940 is open to question. Indeed, The Aeroplane slightly questioned it.

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