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It was a challenge given, a challenge accepted. Two days later Chancellor Hitler made good his boast, Prime Minister Churchill his defiance. The British were sure they could stand it not only because their nerves were good, but because they knew that their Air Force was still intact, that man-for-man and ship-for-ship it was better than the Luftwaffe, and that behind the still outnumbered R. A. F. was a broadening stream of new equipment which, they fervently hoped, might eventually drive German planes from their skies. In aircraft production more than in any other effort of their war lay Britons' chance of beating The Man Hitler.
Correspondents who last week made a tour of the Midlands factory district, where most British airplanes and parts are made, reported no appreciable damage. One correspondent poked his nose into the garden of William Maxwell Aitken, Baron Beaverbrook, who is Minister of Aircraft Production, and found everything quiet there. Not long before, Lord Beaverbrook had said: "If you want to see what damage Hitler's done, take a look into Beaverbrook's garden. When you see a little man tearing up and down, raging and shaking his fist at the sky, you'll know Hitler's hit aircraft production."
In spite of individual superiority, in spite of the advantage of fighting at home, Britain is still far behind Germany in air strength. Best estimate of present first-line strength gives Germany 12,500 ships, Britain 6,600. Even if the rate of production is neither better nor worse than last spring, Germany is still producing 2,300 planes a month. Last month Britain claimed a production of nearly 1,800 planes, got between 350 and 400 from the U. S. The 1,800 figure is almost exactly twice as many as British factories turned out in May, the month Lord Beaverbrook took charge. Even if Britain goes down this fall, it will not be Lord Beaverbrook's fault. If she holds out, it will be his triumph. This war is a war of machines. It will be won on the assembly line.
"The Methods." Not Iong ago a civil servant who had just been transferred to the Ministry of Aircraft Production expressed the general complaint against the Ministry. "You'd hardly believe the appalling state of this office," said he. "The place is a complete chaos." Somebody asked: "Isn't the Beaver producing the planes?" "Oh, yes," said the complainant, "he's producing them all right. But, my dear fellow, the methods! They're dreadful."
When Winston Churchill created a new ministry for him four months ago, Lord Beaverbrook considered himself the most unpopular man in Britain. In 31 years since he had gone over from Canada, a rich Colonial with a twangy voice and a wardrobe of loud suits, he had been phenomenally successful as a publisher, fairly successful in politics, utterly unsuccessful in getting himself widely liked. He was an outlander and he could get things done, and for one thing as much as the other stodgy Britons mistrusted him. In Britain "brilliant" is an opprobrious term.