The origin of the Empire air route between Britain and South Africa goes back to 1919. That year the R.A.F. began the essential. preliminaries of surveying the Cairo-Cape Town section of the route -a distance of 5,260 miles.The task was far from easy, yet in ten years R.A.F. teams had built twenty-seven main. aerodromes and thirty intermediate airfields down the length of the African continent. These installations, hewn by hand out of forest and swamp, were spaced at distances of approximately 124 miles,or under.two hours' flying time apart.

The first flight from London to Cape Town was successfully completed in March, 1920, by Lieut-Col. Pierre van Ryneveld and Captain Quintin Brand. Their 45-day flight was a feat which most people considered too hazardous to be worth the risk.

On 22nd October, 1930, an agreement was signed withImperial Airways - a predecessor of B.O.A.C. for the operation of a weekly air service in both directions between Cairo and Cape Town. The first through service from London was operated experimentally with the Christmas mail of 1931. Regular weekly mail service was inaugurated on 20th January, 1932, and took 10 days for the 8,000-mile flight. In April of the same year the service was available for passenger traffic. The eventual introduction of faster aircraft,reduced the journey to 9 days. In 1936 Johannesburg replaced Cape Town as theterminus of the South African service. Flying boats were introduced on the U.K.- Egypt section of the route in March, I937 . Two months later they were flying on to Kisumu and eventually to Durban via Mombasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Lindi, Mozambique, Beira and Laurenco Marques. This flying boat service reduced the journey from 8 to 6 days. The landplane service to Johannesburg was withdrawn.

At the beginning of the war the Secretary of State for Air took over the undertakings of Imperial Airways and British Airways, pending the activating on Ist April, 1940, of the British Overseas Airways Act. So, in actual fact, B.O.A.C. existed from the outbreak of war.

After the war, B.O.A.C., in association with South African Airways, re-opened the direct air route between Britain and South Africa christened the Springbok Route - with a landplane service in November, 1945. . In May, 1948, B.O.A.C. began operating.Solent flying boats from the Marine Air Base at Southampton to Vaaldam, near Johannesburg, with nightstops at Sicily, Luxor, Kampala and Victoria Falls.

On 7th November, 1950, flying boats were replaced with pressurized Hermes airliners which completed the journey between London ami Johannesburg with out nightstops in under a day and a half. This service was routed down the west side of Africa via Tripoli, K ano, Brazzaville and Livingstone. Meanwhile, South African Airways introduced and is still operating Constellation airliners between London and Johannesburg via Rome, Khartoum and Nairobi in under a day and a half without night stops.

Crowning achievement of B.O.A.C. on the South African service was, of course, the introduction on 2nd May, 1952, of Comet jetliners between London and Johannesburg at no extra.fare. Flying 450-500 m.p.h. at 35 - 40,000 feet, these first pure jet airliners in the world complete the 6,700-mile flight in 23 hours, 20 minutes, including stops at Rome, Beirut, Khartoum, Entebbe and Livingstone. Actual flying time is only 18 hours, 40 minutes. An alternate routing via Cairo instead of Beirut reduces the total distance by 450 miles and the journey by an hour.

B.O.A.C. TAKES GOOD CARE OF YOU T0 ALL SIX CONTIN ENTS - FLY BRlTISH BY B.O.A.C.