The Atlantic Company

CCXLIX

R-101

Plans for scheduled airplane crossings of the North Atlantic Ocean dated back to 1932 when the United Kingdom founded its national flag carrier Imperial Airlines (later British Overseas Air Corporation or BOAC, and even later British Airways). It was an eminently sensible plan that would have linked Ottawa to London via Dublin. The chief difficulty was that the British simply didn’t have the long-range fixed wing aircraft to do the job and the Air Ministry was enamored of airships --- at least until the R-101 disaster in 1930 that threw the Imperial Airship Scheme into a cocked hat. The British quit on airships after that, but they still didn’t put money behind flying boats --- the only long range aircraft type at the time. Instead, they stuck with large and lumbering short-range biplanes.

Imperial Airways’ Handley-Page W.10 City of Melbourne, 1929

 

In 1932, Britain had 32 aircraft in its commercial fleet, most of them wooden strut craft. Pan Am had 121 planes, all of them metal.

de Havilland DH66 G-EBMX City of Delhi. George Woods-Humphrey is in the group

British disinterest in aviation was reflected in His Majesty’s Government’s choice of George Woods-Humphrey as director of of their national carrier. His chief claim to fame was that he, quite in keeping with himself, invented the name “Imperial Airways”. Woods-Humphrey was a staid, metaphorically mutton-chopped engineer of Jack Kipling vintage who knew almost nothing about airplanes when he was appointed. What he knew was that Provision H did not permit any foreign carrier from using any route that the British Empire wasn’t using first, and he trumpeted that idea with all the zeal of a minister thumping a bible. Time after time he rebuffed Juan Trippe’s overtures to establish a regular transatlantic service between New York and London (via Newfoundland and Ireland). 
 

At the same time he permitted (because he was told to permit) development of an overland route from London to Karachi, India. Ultimately, the plan was to link London to Sydney and Vancouver by going east; the British chose not to go west because it would have injured the venerable but struggling North Atlantic Ferry operated by the Cunard-White Star Line. The original flying boats chosen for “The All-Red Route” were medium-range aircraft that could hop from one British dependency to another, connecting them all.

 

Thus, Woods-Humphrey took little interest in the development of Pan Am’s long-range S-42s and M-130s, and though he had a cordial relationship with Juan Trippe, did not inquire after Trippe’s plans (gentlemen did not do such things) to conquer the oceans. Imperial was caught essentially flat-footed when Pan Am crossed the Pacific. Woods-Humphrey was offended (as a gentleman would be) when Trippe got landing rights in Hong Kong despite Provision H and when New Zealand broke with Home to allow Pan Am to bring the mails to Auckland. 

“London by Air” from Hong Kong via Imperial Airways. Note that the aircraft is a biplane

Something had to be done. The Short Empire S.23 flying boat Centaurus was dispatched to New Zealand on a survey flight. It arrived on Christmas Day 1937, one day after the Samoan Clipper inaugurated weekly airmail service from America and points east.

Centaurus

It was clear that Trippe’s next venture would be to cross the Atlantic. Although island-hopping opportunities were limited in the North Atlantic, there was fear that Trippe’s next flying boat might be able to make it all the way across the ocean without stopping.

Dwarfing everything around it, the Honolulu Clipper at Treasure Island, 1939

For a while the Air Ministry exerted significant pressure on Iceland and Portugal (two close British allies) not to permit Pan American to use their airspace, but London had less leverage in Paris and Madrid. Eventually, someone would grant Juan Trippe what he wanted.

The Yankee Clipper in the Azores, 1939

Backed into a corner by his own obstreperousness, Woods-Humphrey offered Juan Trippe what became well known as the Square Deal Agreement, which in essence said that Great Britain would deal only with Pan Am and Pan Am only with Great Britain (unless otherwise jointly agreed). By offering this Square Deal, Woods-Humphrey was treating with Pan Am as though it was the official flag carrier of the United States, a gross faux pas glossed over happily by Trippe at the time. It would cost him later. 

The Anzac Clipper

The demand to create a North Atlantic Air Ferry was given even greater impetus when in 1936, two Lufthansa catapult planes landed in Long Island Sound. The Nazis had made the first commercial crossing of the North Atlantic by fixed-wing aircraft, and though their planes carried nothing but the pilots it proved that the Germans could reach North America by air in fast-moving small airplanes. The bombing of Guernica a few months later proved what fast-moving small airplanes were capable of.

A Dornier DO 26 flying boat owned by Lufthansa being made ready for catapult launch

British anxiety rose that they might be cut off from “the Colonials” in the event of a war, and official Washington gritted its teeth at the thought of the Luftwaffe overflying Manhasset. Quickly, the British assembled what they called “The Atlantic Company” to establish British air service to America. That was fine with the U.S. Government. It was far less fine that Pan Am had entered into what was, for all intents and purposes, a treaty with the United Kingdom. Had Pan American had a viable competitor in the transoceanic flying business it’s likely that State would have quashed the Square Deal, but there was nobody else. The U.S. grudgingly acquiesced to the Square Deal.

Now, Juan Trippe thought, at last! All he needed was to start flying.  Or, actually, no. The New York-to-London (Southampton) route had one inescapable shortcoming named Winter. Weather conditions in the high latitudes of the North Atlantic in winter were miserable and dangerous. The seas were such that a stricken Clipper could not set down with any real chance of survival. The air was freezing cold at sea level and colder yet at altitude. In transit, the flying boats would grow shells of ice that would weigh tons, affect their flying capabilities, and, at best, make the passage an ordeal for the passengers. No balmy tropical isles awaited the adventurer moving between northern North America and northern Europe. Trippe needed a southern route for inclement weather.

Enter Portugal. The small Iberian nation, balked by British intransigence toward the North Atlantic route for years, suddenly wanted a piece of the action. It offered Pan Am landing rights in the Azores and in Madeira and in Lisbon --- at an exorbitant price --- but Trippe was as neatly backed into a corner --- for once --- as Woods-Humphrey had been when he first invented the idea of the Square Deal. Portugal was brought in. The Square Deal was now more of a rhombus.