Beaverbrook found other means of achieving this heightened engagement as well, these just as oblique. Like Churchill, he recognized the power of symbols. He sent RAF pilots to factories, to establish a direct connection between the work of building airplanes and the men who flew them. He insisted that these be actual fighting pilots, with wings on their uniforms, not merely RAF officials paroled briefly from their desks. He also ordered that the husks of downed German planes be displayed around the country, and in such a way that the public would not suspect the hand of the minister of
...more
