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Re: Any dispute about interpreting the BofB?
Hello Tony
thanks a lot for your informative message. I have read neither of the biographies, so nice to have summary of them. However, biographies usually have the problem that they tended to make their subject more important than he/she was or at least see the issues at least partly through the subject’s eyes. That said, I must admit that AJP is my favourite British historian, as a person, and I have usually enjoyed greatly his books. But the truth is that from Furse’s biography on Freeman one gets a somewhat different picture on Beaverbrook’s achievement. Furse saw things clearly from Freeman’s point of view, but generally it is a good book. Freeman had already seen before the establishment of MAP, that Nuffield was ineffective in aviation field.
On Loewy, according to Furse, he was allowed to continue his work after the outbreak of war but many of his assistants were interned. What B did was to rescue those Loewy’s collegues and other experienced a/c engineers from interment camps and put them to work for the MAP. This was one of B’s unorthodox ways which greatly impressed Freeman as did some of his ruthless ways to get changes done quickly. But generally Freeman had rather negative view on B’s actions. In fact the chapter on B's time in the MAP in Furse's book has the heading: "Magic is nine-tenths illusion" - the Beaverbrook myth.
On Whittle jet, Furse gives exactly opposite view. According to him, Freeman went so far as to conceal its existence from B for nearly a week with the result that it was not cancelled, and merely lost its priority status from 20 May to 11 June1940. Freeman also asked, via Tedder, Joubert to dissuade B from halting the development of A.I. radar.
On cannon armament, now prototype cannon Hurricanes and Spitfires were tested during summer 1939 but tests run into difficulties because 20mm Hispano, which was designed as Motor-Canon, did not at first take well installations into wings, becoming very unreliable. When 19 Sqn was equipped with canon armed Spit Mk Ibs during the BoB, its pilots soon became very frustrated with it and in the end its CO got his way and they gladly changed their new Mk Ibs to second-hand mg armed Mk Ias.
Juha
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