Monday, May. 12, 1941

Changes Made

Last week Winston Churchill made drastic changes in his Cabinet.

The reason was that although Winston Churchill's days & nights are filled with the problems of Britain's fighting forces, as Prime Minister he is also responsible for Britain's whole wartime economy and for repairing both the human and material damage of Germany's continuous air attack on the British Isles. It is a staggering responsibility, and Winston Churchill is a human being, not an Atlas. Britain's production of war materiel has lagged behind expectations; the one great exception is airplanes. Britain's transport facilities have been faulty, with slow unloading and turnaround of supply ships, with clogging of goods on motionless ships and trains, or on docks, where they make easy Nazi bomb targets. Lack of coordination between Government agencies has made the supply of food and housing to Blitzed Britishers, and the reconstruction of bombed areas, much slower than need be. Last week it seemed that Winston Churchill badly needed a super-deputy who would concentrate on Britain's economy and repairs while the Prime Minister concentrated on Britain's battles. That appeared to be the chief reason why he created the new office of Minister of State and filled it with small-bodied, huge-headed, 61-year-old Lord Beaverbrook. It is the dynamic, Canadian-born Beaver who as Minister for Aircraft Production has whipped & spurred, rammed & jammed British airplane building up to par and beyond (TiME, March 31). His rampaging, red-tape-slashing, to-hell-with-gentlemanliness methods are probably as great a threat as Britain has to offer to bottlenecks in military production, transport and Blitz repair. Millions of Britons also hope that the Beaver, publisher of London's great Daily Express, will throw his weight against needless press censorship and propagandizing.

The day after his appointment the Daily Express bitterly attacked the tone of "everything's fine'' sounded in many British journals, adding: "Bunk merchants are at it again. . . . Among other fairy tales we read yesterday were:

1) The German Army is rotting in Holland;

2) There is mutiny among U-boat crews;

3) Russia is going to fight Germany. On the contrary, we have been licked in Norway, licked in France, Belgium and Holland, licked in Libya and licked in Greece. Believe nothing good in this war until you see it and until you earn it."

To work side-by-side with the Beaver, Winston Churchill also created another new office, the Ministry of Shipping & Transport. To it he appointed lanky, balding, soft-voiced Frederick James Leathers, 60, who rose from an office boy to head William Cory & Son, great British coal concern. Recently adviser on coal to the Shipping Ministry, he is now the first man ever charged with coordinating all British transport facilities--railroads, ports, highways. His long experience in international coal shipping will be devoted to the enormous job of keeping Britain's streams of materials in rapid, productive, bomb-defying movement from wherever sent to wherever consigned. Former Minister of Shipping Ronald Hibbert Cross was last week sent as Britain's first High Commissioner to hard-fighting Australia. (Canada and the Union of South Africa already have such emissaries.)

To fill the Beaver's place in the Aircraft Production Ministry, the Prime Minister appointed tall, sporting Lieut. Colonel John Theodore Cuthbert ("Brab") Moore-Brabazon, 57, who in 1909 was the first man to fly an English-made plane for a circular mile, today holds Britain's flying license No. 1 and the automobile plates to go with it (see cut). He has three times won Switzerland's famed Cresta Run (toboggan) cup. No flier today, humorous Lieut. Colonel Moore-Brabazon says: "I do not believe that any form of transportation will become really popular in which if you make a small mistake you go straight to the cemetery." A popular favorite in the aircraft industry, he should be an excellent liaison officer between the Beaver and the industry, now rolling fast on Beaverbrook schedules.

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