Britannia Airways

Back in the early 1990s, I was privileged to research, write and compile three airline histories: The Spirit of Dan-Air, Colours in the Sky – the story of Autair International Airways and Court Line Aviation and It Was Nice to Fly With Friends – the story of Air Europe.
   During that time, I met, interviewed and more importantly gained the trust of many of the major key players in the industry. People like Fred - known by everyone within the company as ‘Mister’ Newman, the chairman of Dan-Air for thirty-seven of the airline’s forty-year history, William ‘Bill’ Armstrong, the founder and chairman of Autair - and so many other airlines he could not remember them all! Ed Posey, the managing director of Court Line Aviation, who took the eventual collapse very personally, Errol Cossey, one of the three founders of Air Europe, who sold out at just the right time before moving on to found Air 2000, selling that and founding Flying Colours, selling that and...  David James, then the darling ‘Company Doctor’ of the City of London who was supposed to look after the bank’s interests, but fell in love with the smell of the kerosene and roar of the jets. They all saw dealing with me as being fraught with commercial danger – after all, most were still actively involved in the holiday business in one shape or form - but this understandable caution was balanced by their egos that wanted to be of assistance to ensure their story was told! Even so, they all tended to play things very close to their chests.
    Indeed, I worked for Dan-Air as their official historian, which gained me direct access to many of the key players. Since then, I have written other airline stories, but I seem to be continually drawn back to gathering material on ‘The Independents’. These research notes, first-hand interviews and audio recordings I had made lay filed away in my loft, gradually being added to as more and more information surfaced. Each book was as accurate as I could make it, but I always had the nagging doubt in the back of my mind that although they were helpful, I was also being humoured and the full story was not being revealed. There were things that were hinted at, and a few things said in confidence that I was asked not to print. Sure, everything day-to-day was told, but the background activities, the business concepts and models I sensed were being held back – like good poker players they revealed little beyond the immediate play!
    Since 1970, when I became involved with the creation of the aeronautical collection at Duxford, I had been fascinated by the charter airline industry that went under many names: ‘package tours’, ‘Inclusive Tours’, even ‘cheapies’. Whatever the name, it all fell under the dismissive concept of ‘Buckets and Spades to Benidorm’ by those who thought themselves as ‘travellers’, not tourists.  With the brash confidence of youth, I made contact with many of the people and companies - contact that was maintained over many years.
    Quickly I realized that many of the owners and operators were what could only be called ‘characters’.  People like the high-flying Freddie Laker – a supreme publicist with a puckish sense of humour that concealed one of civil aviation’s sharpest technical brains and a will of iron.  The cocaine snorting Harry Goodman, a cross between an East End barrow-boy and a cavalier salesman who could - and did - sell anything to anyone. Harold Bamberg, the suave, sharp-suited owner of Eagle Airways, who once the airline collapsed and was taken over, virtually disappeared. Tom Gullick, the ‘stack-em-high, sell-em-cheap’ hard-drinking managing director of Clarksons Holidays, who claimed to be the inventor of ‘vertical integration’ and the infamous ‘seat-back catering’. Vladimir Raitz, the man who many credit with starting it all with his Horizon Holidays. The wonderful Monique Agazarian, who in the 1950s owned Island Air Services and who used to run scheduled services flights across the channel and pleasure flights from London Heathrow – and who later owned and operated a flight simulator complex in the basement of the Piccadilly Hotel just off Piccadilly Circus under the advertising slogan of ‘Fly Down Piccadilly’! The dour, secretive and monosyllabic ‘Captain’ T E D Langton, the tour operator who wanted his own airline,  J E D  Williams who created the airline that had the old lady in a wheelchair on the tails of their aircraft... They are just a few of the many that had a tale to tell, but for whatever reason were reticent.
    The package holiday has undoubtedly changed the way we live. It has influenced what we eat and what we drink. Its brochures changed our dreams and aspirations; indeed, the evolution of the holiday brochure is nothing less than a template for the graphic designers’ art! 
    Despite the occasional outbreak of loutish behaviour by Brits abroad - usually blown up to the extreme by the British media - it is likely that the annual holiday has produced an overall gain in international understanding and a reduction in blinkered nationalism.
    From rickety Rapides to draughty Dakotas, through turbo-props to Tangier and turbines to Thessaloniki these travel and aviation entrepreneurs opened up the Mediterranian - and then set their sights on further afield, changing the landscape wherever they landed.
    Without a doubt, the convenience and perceived security of the inclusive tour holiday - carried to the extreme with the all-inclusive deal - will ensure the survival of those prepared to adapt indeed survive.
    The ‘package deal’ broke the protectionist policies of the state airlines and, through the introduction of seat-only deals, spawned the low-cost airlines offering rock-bottom deals to European destinations.
    One airline that always stood out for me was Britannia Airways - even in the early days the company had a certain mystique about it. There was always an air of ‘class’ there; something that suggested a certain prepossessing ‘Britishness’ that seemed to click with the aspiring middle classes. It was an airline that I always planned on telling it’s story - and now seems a good a time as any since it has disappeared into the corporate conglomerate that is TUI. Those three letters apparently pronounced ‘too-ee’ - is short for Touristik Union International - an Anglo-German travel and tourism conglomerate headquartered in Hannover, Germany. It is currently the largest leisure, travel and tourism company in the world,  and owns travel agencies, hotels, airlines, cruise ships and retail stores. The group owns a number of European airlines that currently make up the largest holiday fleet in Europe - and several European tour operators.
    To tell the story of Britannia Airways - and its predecessor Euravia - is impossible without telling the story of Universal Sky Tours and Thomson Travel, for theirs was a truly symbiotic relationship. They each needed the other to exist and thrive, despite the cut-throat competition with margins cut to the bone.
    Much of the airline’s identity came from the Lady Britannia emblem painted large on the tails of their airliner fleet. Britannia was the female personification of the British Isles, who has been a popular figure since the first century when she was first depicted as a warrior goddess. It was seen as a symbol of British unity, liberty and strength, that meant she often resurfaced during particularly challenging times. Like Columbia in the US and Marianne in France, Britannia became more prominent in times of war or when national pride was booming.
    Her appearance in the 17th century came not long after James I brought together England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland under one rule, and more recently the Cool Britannia movement heralded a time of renewed optimism.
    In the eyes of many, Britannia screamed all that they saw as being good about Great Britain. Here, therefore, was a heritage, image and ideal that the airline could use to its own best advantage - even if many of the staff somewhat disparagingly nicknamed the logo ‘the old lady in a wheelchair’. Through the use of the logo, to the red, white and blue colour schemes and the traditional Shepherds - or was it Cottage? -  Pie inflight meal that seemed to be served on every return journey that offered an onboard ‘welcome home to Blighty’, Britannia Airways personified an upbeat, up-market image, that made use of the latest equipment, flying to destinations that were always stretching the realms of the new British Empire of the UK travelling public.
    On a practical level, throughout this book are scattered numerous covers of assorted Inflight magazines and some advertising material. Most are not captioned, for they are usually self-explanatory - they are intended to jog the reader’s memory into thinking ‘...oh! I remember seeing that!’
    Of the many hundreds of images I have used in this book, I make no apologies for the lack of quality in some. Today, in 2020, we have all been spoiled by the ability to take hundreds of pin-sharp digital images whenever and wherever we want. Some readers, I am sure, are not even old enough to remember the days of ‘Instamatic’ camera with twelve shot cartridge films that were in use when I first saw Britannia’s Brits. These images were often printed up on horrible ‘orange-peel’ textured paper, that when scanned, often appear out of focus! Even with a thirty-five-millimetre camera, the cost of film, processing and printing meant that images had to be rationed. Many of the pictures used are from personal collections; some are repairs of company promotional material, a few are from newspaper cuttings pasted in albums without credit.  All, however, are historic in the sense that they show aspects of the company and its forerunners story.
    So, before we get to the meat of the story, we need to go back, way back and discover the origins of not only the airline but the industry it once served...   

The book is due out soon - more information here! https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Britannia-Airways-Hardback/p/17790

THE SECRET US PLAN TO OVERTHROW THE BRITISH EMPIRE: WAR PLAN RED

As many of my readers know,  I'm not a one-trick pony author, constantly regurgitating variations on a similar theme of the same basic subject. I much more prefer to dive into the little known-about aspects of history, rummage around and then see what surfaces.

This is one such example of what happens when one stirs the mud at the bottom of the pond.

This book starts around the turn of the 20th century when Vittorio Emanuele Cuniberti (1854 – 1913) an Italian military officer and naval engineer envisioned the concept of the all big gun battleship. He recorded his thoughts in an article he wrote for Jane’s Fighting Ships in 1903. The vessel Cuniberti envisaged would be nothing less than a colossus of the seas. His main idea was that this ship would carry only one calibre of gun - the twelve-inch -  the largest available.
    This heavily armoured titan would be impervious to all but the twelve-inch guns of the enemy. Cuniberti saw the enemy’s small calibre guns as having no effect on his design. Cuniberti’s vessel had twelve large calibre guns and would have a significant advantage over the then-standard four of the enemy ship. His ship would be fast so that she could choose her point of attack. Cuniberti saw this ship able to discharge such a massive broadside, all of one large calibre, that she would engulf first one enemy ship, then move on to the next, and the next, disdainfully destroying an entire enemy fleet. He conjectured that the effect of a squadron of six colossi would give a fleet such overwhelming power to deter all possible opponents.
    At this time, the political atmosphere in Britain was explosive; for the first time since Trafalgar, there was a severe challenge to the Royal Navy. A short distance across the North Sea, the German Navy, was building a powerful fleet. Behind that fleet lay the overwhelming power of the German Army. Behind Britain’s, sea shield lay the numerically small British Army.
    The challenge to Britain was severe. Admiral Sir John ‘Jacky’ Fisher, Royal Navy, was the driving force behind the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought. The ship was completed in a year and day and was launched in 1906. Dreadnought’s speed was ensured by using the revolutionary turbine engines devised by Sir Charles Parsons.
    Immediately this vessel defined the era.  Thereafter all battleships following its design would be referred to, generically, as ‘dreadnoughts’.
    Jacky Fisher never gave any credit to Cuniberti or any foreigner for that matter. The Americans were publishing articles about potential designs, and the General Board was reviewing several options, but USS South Carolina and USS Michigan were not authorised until March 1905, and neither were laid down until December 1906. Neither were the Japanese building the Satsuma class, which wasn’t ordered until 1904 and laid down in 1905.
    To say the threat from the dreadnought concept worried other nations is an understatement - it petrified them! It was now a race to match, and hopefully, beat the British Royal Navy - then came the Great War which brought forth even more advances.
    The horrors of the war brought forth campaigns for peace, at the same time as there were clamourings within certain quarters that America should consider itself first. The 1920s were to become a battle between disparate groups - hawks, doves, imperialists, isolationists, politicians, military men - all had vested interests, and all had a drum to bang. There were calls from the so-called ‘Isolationists’ for keeping out of any future conflicts with what was seen as ‘the old world’. Within the American politico-military establishment was a growing body of opinion termed ‘Imperialists’ who thought that they - the United States of America - could and should be the world’s only super-power. Coupled with this was the anti-British emotions stirred up by convicted criminal and jail escapee Éamon de Valera.
    Throughout the 1920s there was a whole series of peace and re-armament conferences in which the Imperialists metaphorically fought with the Isolationists for control over hearts, minds and the military-industrial complex. If the Imperialists within the US Navy won this clandestine battle, then they would achieve their aims to become the world’s super-power.
    It became clear as the decade wore on that the Imperialists were not going to gain a clear-cut victory, so other, more direct means would be needed - and it is at this point that the story moves from being an entrée to the main course. The majority of this book has been compiled using just three contemporary, primary-source sets of documents from NARA  - the National Archives & Records Administration. The first is what was called War Plan Red, a scheme for the USA to invade Canada and the Caribbean and then destroy the Royal Navy which in turn would destroy the British Empire. The second is a group of files called ‘SPOBS - The Special Observers Group’, an organisation that evolved from a large number of MilitaryAttachés based in and operating out of the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London. This group, in turn, developed into what was recorded in the third set of files, detailing what was termed the USAFBI - the United States Armed Forces in the British Isles. With the eventual coming of American troops to the UK, this was to become the ETO - European Theater of Operations.
    Recent times show that much of mainstream America has forgotten just how much it admired and promoted the activities of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party. Thousands of Americans paraded through the streets and even more joined organisations like the American Bund. Over twenty-seven million listeners tuned in every week to hear the rantings of Charles Edward Coughlin a Canadian-American Roman Catholic priest who was based in the United States near Detroit. Commonly known as Father Coughlin, he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience. In 1934, he established a political organisation called the National Union for Social Justice. Its platform called for monetary reforms, nationalisation of major industries and railroads, and protection of labour rights. Coughlin began to use his radio program to broadcast antisemitic commentary. In the late 1930s, he supported some of the fascist policies of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito of Japan. The broadcasts have been described as “a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture”.  His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, using the slogan “Social Justice”.  There are future echoes of Coughlin's playbook today in both the style, if not the substance of today's right-wing US media.
    As early as 1939 the American military establishment created an intelligence-gathering machine of ever-growing dimensions within their Embassy in London under the ambassadorship of Joseph Patrick Kennedy Snr.
    This was well before the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which was the wartime intelligence agency of the USA during World War Two, and a predecessor of the modern Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)  to gather intelligence and to coordinate espionage activities for all branches of the US Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning.
    The difficulty here is in trying to determine if the Military Attachés and SPOBS activities could be termed as ‘spying’, for according to the discovered documents, they were operating - at least in the early days in Great Britain - with the full permission and knowledge of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary. This, of course, goes against the definition of the word - a  spy being a person employed by a government or other organisation to obtain information on an enemy or competitor secretly. That said, their intelligence-gathering activities spread out from Great Britain as far as the Middle East, Africa, South America, Russia and Asia - far beyond the terms of the original brief. It also did not cease with the outbreak of peace in 1945. The advent of the ‘Cold War’ between East and West brought forth a whole new range of subterfuge and behind the scenes activities by the CIA that had been formed on 18 September 1947.    
    The USA and the Soviet Union fought a whole series of wars by proxy around the world, ranging from The Far East, through Africa to Central and Southern America - often in countries that were formerly part of the British Empire. Although the subject of many books in its own right, this too is investigated to put things in context.
    So, were the Americans allies - or spies? Certainly, the SPOBS bled Great Britain white of data and information, sending it all back to the War Department in Washington under the guise of preparing to help. It was also something of a blueprint that America was to use in one form or another to ‘encourage’ regime change around the world through the seventy years or so after World War Two, and continues on today.
   
Writing this has proved to be challenging - reading it may be the same. The difficulties, as usual with much of my work, springs from the differences of our so-called ‘common language’. Color becomes colour, program becomes programme, and of course, American phrasing is often different from English. Then there is the dreaded use of plane instead of aircraft; I don’t care what anyone says, a plane is a cutting tool used to smooth wood in my books!

I had access to well over 60,000 pages of contemporary primary source documentation, many of which had introductions to the files written in the style of my hero, Sir Humphrey Appleby GCB KBE MVO.  This was further complicated - especially in the latter part of this work - by using primary source documents written by Americans, but at least typed out in part by British civilians, resulting in the strange mix of British and American spellings and phrasing appearing on the same carbon copy! It is a standard convention that quotes are sacrosanct, so these anomalies remain untouched.

The title is an imprint of Frontline Books, part of the Pen & Sword group and is available here> https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Secret-US-Plan-to-Overthrow-the-British-Empire-Hardback/p/17661