However, during Clapp's tenure the VR was already struggling to match new competition from road transport, as well as to remain profitable despite the legacy of a network of short, inefficient branch line s built in the late nineteenth century for reasons of political expediency rather than economic merit, challenges that were to bedevil Clapp's successors. The VR only turned a profit in two of the nearly twenty years that he was at its helm. In May 1939, with the outbreak of World War II imminent, Clapp was seconded by then Prime Minister Robert Menzies to become general manager of the Aircraft Construction Branch of the Commonwealth Department of Supply and Development, overseeing the construction of Bristol Beaufort bombers in Australia. He was made chairman of the new Aircraft Production Commission in March next year.
Clapp
Robert Menzies