Airlines: Charting Air Transport History with R.E.G. Davies

By Christopher H. Sterling

"Airlines: Charting Air Transport History with R.E.G. Davies" is a book created to celebrate the life and career of R.E.G. Davies, a leading air transport historian for over 50 years, first in commercial aviation, and then as Curator at the National Air and Space Museum. This volume is an edited compilation of contributions from many people who worked with, and/or who were friends with R.E.G. Davies, which also highlights Ron Davies's own achievements by including several of his own articles and reports.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483565170

Christopher H. Sterling

Christopher H. Sterling is professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. He is author or editor of two dozen books, including Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting.

Book preview

Part 1:

R.E.G. Davies, Historian

(1921-2011)

Chapter 1A

Lives that Dreams are Made Of

R.E.G. Davies

My interest in airline history had its origins in an event that, in retrospect, was unplanned, and almost accidental. I had started work in the British Civil Service in 1938, and after serving in the British Army throughout the Second World War, was back in government service again, this time in the newly-created Ministry of Civil Aviation. After a year or two in the Economics and Intelligence Division, I was transferred to the Long Term Planning Department in 1948, and this was (though I did not realize it at the time) the turning point and the springboard of my career.

Long Term Planning was headed by the young Peter (later Sir Peter) Masefield, recently returned from the British Embassy in Washington. His technical assistant was Peter Brooks, later to write some definitive books on airliner development. Working with these two innovative men was like attending a university tutorial every day, and in addition to soaking myself in the mysteries of airline economics, I acquired an interest in airline history, one that later developed into a compulsion for research into the subject, and I began to keep files and records, and to start to collect memorabilia that was of historical interest and value.

Masefield was charged to advise the British Government on its future course in civil aviation and was a frequent lecturer. He loved to begin his talks with reminiscing in the past, partly to remind his audiences of the lessons to be learned. In addition to pushing a slide-rule (this was long before computers), working out costs per seat-mile, I also had to consult archival records in search of obscure details of airline history that Masefield needed for the introductory sections of his speeches. Seeking prime-source material, I enjoyed visiting the London offices of all the international airlines, to learn about their pioneering achievements. In the field of air route development throughout six continents, I realized that truth could often be stranger, and more fulfilling, than fiction.

Masefield moved on, first to British European Airways, then to the Bristol Aeroplane Company, and I moved with him. There I set up Britain’s (and possibly the world’s) first Market Research Department. At the same time, my fascination with airline history also grew to the extent that I felt that, in addition to the many publications about airplanes and airmen, especially concerning military exploits, there ought to be books about commercial achievements that were not simply concerned with killing people. Yet there were none, and I was persuaded to write one myself.

I moved to de Havilland in 1959 and then to Douglas Aircraft in California in 1968. Then in 1981 I accepted the offer of the Lindbergh Chair of Aviation History at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. I have been there ever since as a senior curator.

My career has been divided between, on the one hand, developing the methodology of market research and long term planning for airlines; and, on the other hand, in narrating and chronicling the history of the world’s airlines. I think I have been successful in both categories. My track record in forecasting has been sound (though, sadly, not followed by those whom I advised); and I have written 25 books on airline and air transport history, five of them standard references.

I have pursued a fulfilling, and I hope, a creative career. My future was not (to paraphrase Graham Greene) let in from a moment of childhood. I was a late developer, partly because of the War, and my metaphorical door opened only when I was 27 years old. But no regrets. I have enjoyed every minute since that day when, by chance, I was transferred to the Department of Long Term Planning at the Ministry of Civil Aviation in London in 1948.

Reprinted with permission of The Explorers Club, 2005.

Chapter 1B

There Will Never Be Another Pan Am

R.E.G. Davies

Even today, more than a decade after the demise of this great airline, the name is still respected throughout the world of commercial aviation, sometimes almost as if it was still an operating company. The reason is simple. In its time, and certainly under the generalship of Juan Trippe, it dominated the airline industry. From the early 1930s, when it encompassed Latin America; through the later 1930s, when it conquered the oceans; during the post-war era when it set new standards of international service; when it launched the Jet Age in 1958; and when it shook the world with the Jumbo Jet in 1970: Pan American’s leadership among its airline peers was never seriously challenged. Until its downfall, because of some disastrous managerial decisions, it made its imprint in the annals of airline history with such emphasis that the name is indelible.

My earliest memory (as a Brit from across the Pond) was becoming aware of the China Clipper and its remarkable flight to Manila. I was still at grammar school, interested in geography, and had acquired an atlas which innovatively showed the world’s air routes. Brought up to believe that Imperial Airways was preeminent in the field, it was a shock to realize that it was not the only game in town. Or the world.

After my wartime stint in the British Army, and already a civil servant, I joined the Ministry of Civil Aviation in 1946 and worked in the Long Term Planning Department, under Sir Peter Masefield. In trying to plan the future for post-war British air transport, the criterion of excellence always seemed to be to match whatever Pan American was doing; and better still to go the extra mile. The British came close, and Trippe even hedged his bets by ordering a trans-Atlantic Comet 3. But this aircraft, the world’s first jetliner, had its problems, as did the fine Bristol Britannia prop-jet; and Pan Am’s supremacy was never in permanent danger.

In the mid-1950s, I had moved to British European Airways, on Masefield’s staff; and I can remember when, early one morning in 1955, he told us of the epochal Pan American order for 45 Douglas DC-8s and Boeing 707s. It was a shattering blow, not only to British aspirations, but to the prospects of every airline on the planet. I once asked the president of Air France about his analysis. When he heard of the Pan Am order, he simply told his directors to fly to Seattle and order two Boeings. We’ll do the analysis later. Whatever Pan Am did, its competitors had to do the same.

I went to Bristol in 1956 and de Havilland in 1959 and we did the best we could with the Comet 4—not too badly—but by this time Pan American ruled the skies. More than once, while in India, or Pakistan, or somewhere in east Asia, the reliable way to go home, when our business was done, and most of the airlines were delayed somewhere or other, was flight PA1 or PA2, always on time, and in those days, invariably with seats available.

By the time I was working for the Bristol Aeroplane Company, to found a pioneering market research department, I had realized the value of historical trends, and had also become fascinated with the adventure and romance of early airline development. Even at B.E.A., I had complained about the rarity of books about airline history, to the extent that my colleagues persuaded me to stop complaining and write a book yourself. And so, during the next eight years, I did, and in 1964, A History of the World’s Airlines emerged from the Oxford University Press.

During the course of my researches, when I sought every possible source, published or otherwise, I was greatly assisted by the airlines themselves. Among those who helped me enormously was the late Althea Gerry Lister, Pan American’s official historian, who (after making sure that my intentions were honorable), welcomed me to her extensive archives. She gave me privileged access to rare documents of Pan Am’s history and folk-lore—but not to the famous John Leslie files, which, to her eternal annoyance, even Gerry could not penetrate. The ultimate result was the inclusion in my book of the considerable wealth of material that established Pan Am’s pre-eminence in the world of air transport. In the almost 600 pages, it is the only airline to be accorded a chapter of its own.

In subsequent books, notably Putnam’s and Paladwr’s Airlines of the United States since 1914, Airlines of Latin America since 1919, and Airlines of Asia since 1920, Pan American was similarly prominent, partly because of its extensive commercial involvement in overseas airlines that it founded or became associated with.

I moved to the United States in 1968, to head up the Douglas company’s market research department (and was notably unsuccessful in helping to persuade Pan Am to buy the DC-10 instead of the L-1011) and then went to the Smithsonian, first to take the Lindbergh Chair of Aviation History, then to stay on as Curator of Air Transport. I continued to write books about airlines, and conceived the idea of a new style of book presentation and format. At the time, there seemed to be two kinds of books. There was the library type, strictly scholarly, full of facts and figures, but with a tendency to long sections of often tedious prose, and therefore not too interesting to read, unless the reader was studying the subject industriously. The other type was the so-called coffee-table production, beautifully printed, invariably in splendid color, glorious pictures, but little else, except that it was a joy to look at. My idea was to combine the accurate reference material of the former with the attractiveness of the latter—the best of both worlds.

With my artist friend Mike Machat, I selected the subject for the sample that I would show the prospective publisher. I did not have to think very long. Pan American’s credentials were far ahead of those of any other airline. In the entire history of the world’s airlines, Pan Am alone has ever qualified as a mega-carrier. During its golden years, if Pan American coughed, the rest of the world sneezed and caught a cold. No other airline has ever emulated that metaphoric status, and none of today’s airlines ever will.

Eventually, I found a publisher, and thus began a series of pictorial volumes about airlines and air transport. To expand the scope and to retain control, I founded Paladwr Press in 1989, and have published 24 books, all about the commercial side of aviation.

In 1995, I was approached by an ex-Pan American flight attendant with an idea and the Paladwr Press Library series was born. Valerie Lester’s Fasten Your Seat Belts—History and Heroism in the Pan Am Cabin, was published in 1995. Among the titles that followed in the series were several about Pan American: Pan Am’s First Lady, The Diary of Betty Stettinius Trippe; Pan Africa: Across the Sahara in 1941 with Pan Am, by Tom Culbert and Andy Dawson; The Long Way Home (Captain Ford’s epic round-the-world flight, following the Pearl Harbor attack); Skygods—The Fall of Pan Am, by Robert Gandt; and The Company We Kept by Chief Purser Jay Koren.

Finally, in 2001, Paladwr was privileged to publish, in its series of reference books, alongside those of the U.S., Latin America, and Asia, Gene Banning’s monumental work, Airlines of Pan American since 1927. It is a measure of Pan American’s greatness that the scope of its activities required a book of such stature, ranking with those covering whole continents.

Paladwr Press has thus, in addition to many references in other books, published seven that are exclusively about this great airline. Also, in preparation, is a new edition of a book that was only published in limited numbers and semi-privately. Early in 2003 Captain Lodi Speaking, by the well-loved Pan Am Clipper flying-boat pilot, Captain Marius Lodeesen, will be added to the catalogue.

Especially during its declining years, Pan American was not perfect. But its contributions to the operational and technical advancement of the air transport industry have been incalculable. Excluding the embryonic years of commercial aviation, before Pan American was founded, there have been four major eras of international airliner development: the flying boats, the long-range propeller types, the first jet age, and the so-called jumbo jets. Pan American took a prominent part in all of them, and was solely responsible for three of the four. Were it alive today, and with Juan Trippe’s vision, it would have been the first in line of the next generation. The initiative for the future has passed to Europe, and Europe has taken the lead with the Airbus 380. If only Boeing had had the old Pan Am to twist its arm ...

As an historian, writer, and publisher, I have been privileged to be associated with a great airline. I hope that my own books, and those by other authors that I have published, will serve to preserve the memory of the company that, more than any other, met the standards of excellence to which its contemporaries had to aspire, and from which the present-day airlines should learn.

written 29 August 2002

Reproduced and updated with permission of Airways (May 2006), pp. 52-57.

Chapter 2

R.E.G. Davies: Airline Historian

Valerie Lester

(with updating by the editors)

Ronald Davies knew more about civil airline history than anyone in the world partly because he lived through, and worked in, two thirds of its ninety years. He wrote 25 books on the topic. A highlight of his extensive personal library was some 250 loose-leaf binders, now managed by volunteers at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Air & Space, where he served for three decades as Curator of Air Transport. These binders—his dossiers— contain a peerless collection of articles and general information about all the world’s airlines, especially those of the formative years.

How does someone become such an authority? What meandering paths did Davies take to reach that point?

Early Life (1921-39)

Ronald Edward George (R.E.G.) Davies was born in Kent, England, on July 3, 1921. His mother was the head parlor-maid in the household of a Miss Grace, who Ron remembered might have been the sister of W.G. Grace, a famous cricketer. His father was a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy. After his father retired, the family moved first to the Isle of Wight, then to Shaftesbury, in Dorset. Ron was four at the time. I regard myself as a Shastonian—Shaston being the Saxon name for Shaftesbury; Paladwr is the Celtic name, remembered Ron.

Ron was an only child, but not a loner. He played soccer and cricket, and did well at mathematics and geography, his favorite subject. He learned to love maps and to draw them at an early age by studying the map section in Fears Cyclopedia. He owned a dog called Fido, a cross between a wire-haired terrier and a cocker spaniel, whom he refers to as one of our gang. But perhaps the strongest intimation of Ron’s formidable ability to assemble and synthesize information came as a result of collecting cigarette cards. During his childhood, English cigarette companies like Players and Wills enclosed a card in each pack. Each card contained an image and information about a particular subject and made up part of a set. Topics included Footballers, Cricketers, Wonders of the Heavens, Products of the World, Cars, Trains, and (best of all) Aeroplanes.

I supplemented my education with cigarette cards. I was quite a dab hand at playing games to win them, and was particularly good at pitchings-on, says Ron. To acquire new cards, you had to ask someone who was about to light up ‘Do you have the cigarette card?’ If they gave it to you but you already had it, you’d swap it. There was huge competition at school to complete the set first. With enthusiasm and perseverance, Ron amassed an excellent collection, and catalogued it with a graphic reference diagram. An avid young reader, his fiction included junior comics, then the William books and, later, The Saint." Shaftesbury Grammar School took care of Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and (in French) Victor Hugo and Molière. He admitted to not doing too well with Vergil and Livy.

When I was at school, if we heard the sound of an aeroplane, we rushed to the window, Ron continues.

The master of the class could not keep us away. After a while, instead of just looking, we specialized and began identifying types of planes as they flew over. I remember one time going to a local barnstorming air show, held in a farmer’s field, where I witnessed stunt flying and wing-walking, and entered a competition to guess an aeroplane’s fastest and slowest speeds (lost both times).

Ron was house captain for two years but had to leave school early. My family wasn’t really poor, but we almost became so when my dad lost his job. To help out, my mother took in lodgers. My dad’s Navy pension came in every quarter, and this enabled him to treat the family to something special like a new armchair or my first bicycle. In his teens, Ron saved his allowance of half-a-crown (2/6d) per week so that he could pay the entrance fee for the Civil Service clerical examination. In July 1938, just after his 17th birthday, he went up to London and spent an entire week taking the examination at Imperial College. He passed with flying colors (just short of the top 1%) and was offered a job awarding widows’ pensions in the Ministry of Health. He left school in July 1938 on a Friday and started work in London on the following Monday, at 25 shillings (£1.25) per week.

The Army (1939-46)

In April 1939, Davies volunteered for the Territorial Army (the British equivalent of the National Guard) and also started to study for the executive grade in the Civil Service. When the Second World War began in September, the Territorial Army swung into action, doing guard duty all over the country. Ron remembered:

On 27 August 1939, when we returned from Territorial summer camp, we signed on into the regular army. The next day I was guarding the Royal Air Force Fighter Command Headquarters at Stanmore, in north London. Our experience was minimal. We each had a rifle. We didn’t have much training, except to obey the sergeant major’s commands on the barracks square and on route marches. However, after the evacuation from Dunkirk, things became serious, and we prepared for a possible German invasion.

Ron underwent training on the Vickers machine gun. His instructors, Middlesex Regiment old soldiers, put the trainees through their paces. They brought us quickly up to scratch, says Ron. I could still perform the drill today, he claimed more than 60 years later.

In 1941, Davies was sent to a garrison in Budareyri, a little fishing village on the east coast of Iceland, where he continued his training. Iceland was strategically important because, if the Germans had taken it, it would have become a huge naval base for convoys and ships like the Bismarck, and a serious threat to the Allies. We were there for almost a year, half a year training for Arctic warfare, and half training for mountainous conditions, all the time carrying our machine guns as well as our survival kit for camping out on the snow. We were very fit from carrying our guns on long route marches over the mountains, and were described in one newspaper as Britain’s toughest troops. Paradoxically, the Arctic/mountain training was wasted—he would later land at sea level in Normandy during a heat wave.

On his return to Britain in 1942, Davies went to South Wales for training, and was soon driving a Universal Carrier, a small, versatile, tracked vehicle, ideal for swift mobility over rough ground where trucks could not venture. His regular passengers were the platoon sergeant, and the range finder for the Vickers gun.

Ron had what people would call a good war, in the sense that he saw quite a lot of