During a meeting with officials, he tried out a bit of Churchillian rhetoric. “The roots of the Air Force are planted in Coventry,” he said. “If Coventry’s output is destroyed the tree will languish. But if the city rises from the ashes then the tree will continue to burgeon, putting forth fresh leaves and branches.” He was said to have shed tears upon seeing the destruction, only to be brought up “sharply,” according to Lucy Moseley, the mayor’s daughter. Tears, she wrote, had no value. Beaverbrook had hectored the factories for maximum production, and now much of the city was in ruins. “He’d
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