Ministry of Aircraft Production

The Minister of Aircraft Production was the British government position in charge of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, one of the specialised supply ministries set up by the British Government during World War II. As the name suggests, it was responsible for aircraft production for the British forces; primarily the Royal Air Force, but also the Fleet Air Arm.

The department was formed in 1940 by Winston Churchill in response to the production problems that winning the Battle of Britain posed. The first minister was Lord Beaverbrook and under his control the Ministry presided over an enormous increase in British aircraft production. Initially under the personal direction of the Minister (and even, for a time, operating from his private home), the Ministry eventually established permanent offices, and a Director-General of Aircraft Production in charge. The Director-General for most of the war was Eric M Fraser (1896-1960), who remained the most senior non-elected figure in the department. Fraser, whose pre-war career had been with ICI, was first appointed director-general of equipment production, before moving to the aircraft production post which he held throughout the rest of the war.

The first minister, Lord Beaverbrook, pushed for aircraft production to have priority over virtually all other types of munitions production for raw materials. This was needed in the summer and autumn of 1940, but it distorted the supply system of the war economy. It eventually came to be replaced by a quota system, with each supply ministry being allocated a certain amount of raw materials imports to be distributed amongst various projects within the ministries' purviews. Beaverbrook still continued to push hard for increases in aircraft production until he left the Ministry to become Minister of Supply.

One controversial feature of Beaverbrook's tenure was the fact that the aircraft programs set bore little comparison to actually expected aircraft production. Beaverbrook deliberately inserted an extra margin of 15% over and above the very best that British industry could be expected to produce. The theory of inserting the extra margin was to provide an out of reach target to British industry so that it would push as hard as possible to increase production. It was not until the 'realistic' programme of 1943 that aircraft production programmes were actually brought back into line with actual levels of production that could be expected from British factories.

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