Minister of Aircraft Production
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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.
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[edit] History
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.
[edit] Beaverbrook
The first minister, 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.
[edit] Post war demise
The Ministry of Aircraft Production did not long survive the end of the war. A minister with responsibility for both MAP and the Ministry of Supply was appointed in August 1945 and MAP was fully merged into the Ministry of Supply on 1 April 1946.
