1934 – 1936
In January 1933, Air Commodore Richard Peirse minuted Sir John Salmond, Chief of the Air Staff, on the question of air attachés. They should, he suggested,
be selected from among officers who are in the first rank intellectually and socially. Their work is increasing annually both in importance and volume and they are therefore brought into greater prominence and closer touch with public men and affairs. Our credit in foreign capitals and countries must be in a large measure in the hands of our Air Attachés.
Salmond agreed and in July the term of appointment for air attachés was cut to two years in order to meet this new desire to employ only the best officers.
Group Captain R.B. Maycock, Air Attaché in South America, wrote to the ambassador in Buenos Aires in December 1933, making a case for an assistant. There is wealth here,’ he wrote, ‘and enthusiasm for modern aircraft, civil and military, but French and United States representatives outnumber me.’ The Foreign Office sympathized, but the Air Ministry – despite its brave words – was reluctant to incur an extra expense that would, it thought, benefit mainly civil aviation.
Maycock informed the chargé d’affaires in Santiago on 19 July 1934 that Park – ‘a very good fellow indeed’ – would succeed him as South American Air Attaché. Aside from this unsolicited tribute, it is interesting to note how early Park had been chosen for this post. He therefore had several months to learn Spanish before he needed to use it. The Foreign Office informed Sir Henry Chilton, the Ambassador in Buenos Aires, that Park would be sailing for that city on 3 November, accompanied by his wife, but not by their two sons. Ian (then fifteen) and Colin (nine) were left at boarding schools in England. During the next two years, they would spend only the few weeks of their summer holidays with their parents in South America.
This posting owed much to the high standing of Dol’s family in Argentina, although she had never been there. Her great-grandfather, Sir Woodbine Parish, had been Chargé d’Affaires in Buenos Aires from 1824 to 1832 and had concluded a treaty of amity and commerce between Britain and Argentina in 1825. Francis Parish, his third son and her grandfather, had been Acting Chargé in Buenos Aires and chairman of the Great Southern Railway. He had married Margarita Greenlaw in 1855 and their son, Woodbine Parish, Dol’s father, had been a director of the Great Southern Railway. ‘Our Woodie’ became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army. Like his father and grandfather, he devoted himself to fostering closer relations between Britain and Argentina, particularly in trade, investment and cultural exchanges.
Initially, Park was accredited to Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, but soon he was also accredited to all the other independent South American states. In the whole continent, only the three colonial territories – British, French and Dutch Guiana (or Surinam) – lay outside his purview. He was to have an assistant, however, as a result of Maycock’s support and the Air Ministry’s growing awareness of the important work done by their attachés. Unfortunately, the man chosen as his assistant, Squadron Leader Peter Wood, proved not to be ‘particularly industrious’ (in the Air Ministry’s words) and was retired at the end of 1938. Wood’s idleness handicapped Park’s efforts on behalf of British trade. Yet Park well understood that ‘in these bad days’, as a Treasury official wrote in July 1935, attachés had to act as ‘business touts’ and that his assistant had been expressly appointed to further the interests of civil, rather than military, aviation.1
On 1 March 1935 Park reported to the Air Ministry and to Sir Henry Chilton on his recent visit to the aircraft factory at Córdoba, in Argentina. The factory had become an important part of aviation in Argentina, he wrote, and increased local production of training and civil aircraft engines would intensify competition among foreign suppliers for a shrinking market. Córdoba had last been visited by an air attaché three years earlier, when it had still been under construction. Thanks to the generosity of Evans, Thornton (British aircraft agents in Buenos Aires), who lent Park their De Havilland Leopard Moth, the journey to and from Córdoba had taken seven hours; by express train it would have taken twenty-three.
The factory was easily spotted from the air, Park reported, and would make an excellent bombing target. It was far from any port (and therefore from all its imported raw materials), but road and rail links with Córdoba and thus with the rest of the country were adequate. There were no fewer than thirty-four separate workshops and offices, all arranged in neat rows with an eye to military precision rather than efficient aircraft production. Figures had been produced to show that factory-built aircraft cost less than imported aircraft, but Park refused to believe them. Even so, the factory had shown that it could produce adequate trainers and light civil types and therefore offered to British suppliers a market for instruments, accessories and raw materials. He recommended that training be offered in England to Argentine engineers and designers. The cordial reception he had received, Park concluded, suggested that few foreign attachés or diplomats visited Córdoba. The senior officers had entertained him to dinner and presented him with an engraved model of the first Argentine-designed aeroplane. They had also invited him to return later in the year.
A few days later, Park visited a military air base at Paraná. The lack of interest shown by British aircraft manufacturers in Argentina was, he recognized, a consequence of increased orders at home, but when those were filled another lull would follow and it might not then be possible to get into the South American market. Park advised the Air Ministry that Paraná was shortly to be re-equipped with a modern two-seat reconnaissance day-bomber. This decision to modernize offered Britain a clear opening, but Park feared – rightly – that the Americans would seize it. The Argentines, he emphasized, would no longer buy from prettily illustrated catalogues, even when printed in Spanish. Demonstration was essential. Paraná had not been visited by an air attaché since 1932 and no previous report had been compiled for air intelligence purposes. Evans, Thornton again lent Park their Leopard Moth. Unfortunately, a blocked petrol feed delayed him half an hour in starting his return journey. As he wryly admitted, this incident ‘partly negatived the good effect of showing a modern British aircraft.’
In May 1935 Park reported on the military air units stationed at El Palomar, Argentina’s largest air base. It had taken him longer, he said, to collect the information for this report than for any other base in Argentina because the Director-General of Military Aviation did all he could to hide its poor state of equipment and training. Money and labour had been freely spent and the administration, though inefficient, was more elaborate than elsewhere. The aircraft were clean, but their engines ran poorly because of inexpert maintenance despite ‘a formidable set of printed forms and technical records in each hangar’. Flying discipline was negligible. ‘It is quite invigorating,’ Park remarked, ‘to fly at El Palomar on a busy day when there are on occasion as many as thirty aeroplanes in the air over and around the aerodrome.’ Park reported that he was pressing the authorities, tactfully he hoped, to consider elementary precautions, such as landing and taking off into wind. As for the fighter squadron based there, it carried out little gunnery or navigation training and never practised air fighting. The officers,’ wrote Park, ‘spend far too much time strutting about with their tin swords on when they should be either attending lectures or carrying out flying training.’
On 24 November 1935, Jean Batten – a New Zealand woman – landed in Buenos Aires. Flying alone in a Percival Gull monoplane, she was the first woman pilot to fly from England to South America. Enormous crowds turned out to greet her – among them Park, whose command of Spanish and imposing bearing were a great help in preserving some sort of order around her. He was dining with her one day at El Palomar when many of the officers suddenly stood on their chairs, placed one foot on the table, and drained their glasses. Miss Batten was startled, but Park explained that the bachelors were merely toasting her health. She smiled and everyone cheered. As Park pointed out, her visit provided one week of good publicity, whereas representatives of American aircraft companies were active every week and well supported from home.
There were men in the Foreign Office and in the Department of Overseas Trade who recognized the opportunities to which Park so forcefully drew attention, but the Air Ministry, committed to a major expansion of the RAF to meet the challenge of German rearmament, opposed all aircraft sales which it feared might hinder that expansion.2
Park’s efforts on behalf of British aviation in Brazil were just as enthusiastic. In January 1935, the ambassador – Sir William Seeds – reported to the Foreign Office about flying displays given in Rio the previous September by HMS Exeter and USS Ranger. The American seaplanes had been obviously more modern than the British and the publicity was particularly bad because Brazil had been showing keen interest in purchasing new aircraft. Seeds therefore supported Park’s proposals to offer free training in Britain to Brazilian service pilots as a means of fostering the pro-British sentiment which, according to Park, was evident in the Brazilian Naval Air Service. In March the Foreign Office invited the Air Ministry to do what it could. Eight months later the Air Ministry replied, offering to consider taking one officer. The Foreign Office was not impressed either by the tardiness or the content of this response; neither were Seeds and Park.
Seeds liked Park’s pleasant manner as well as his energy and shrewdness. On 16 March, for example, in a despatch to the Foreign Office, he enclosed a note from his commercial secretary suggesting that Park be asked to urge Sir John Siddeley to find a more suitable agent in Brazil: the present man was at odds with the Brazilian Minister of Marine and this was costing the Armstrong Siddeley Company orders. Neither Seeds nor his commercial secretary felt able to influence Siddeley, but both were confident that Park could.
Park visited São Paulo in June 1935, having been informed that the firm VASP (Viação de São Paulo) was unhappy with the Pobjoy engines used in its two Monospar aircraft. He went thoroughly into the whole question, drawing upon reports by Maycock, the Consul General, the British Chamber of Commerce and his own enquiries and observations. The British manufacturer, he thought, took VASP’s complaints too lightly. VASP shared an aerodrome with two other companies using American and German equipment and the Pobjoy failures had been widely publicized.
American influence was strong and growing. An engine repair shop was being built under the supervision of the Curtiss Wright Company, manned by Brazilian civilians and military mechanics trained by Americans. They aimed at long-term sales by providing good servicing and Park warned that this would make it even harder for Britain to sell aircraft in Brazil. He cited the example of Brazil’s Military Air Mail Service. The aircraft and engines used were American (Waco and Curtiss Wright), they performed well and the Brazilian authorities were therefore in favour of American equipment. Although the service was expensive, it offered a first-class training to aircrews and ground staffs and provided a rapid, economical means of communication in an enormous country which was short of roads and railways.
Park’s admiration for North American energy and initiative, born during his term in South America, would mature during the Second World War. His readiness to express that admiration publicly, often linking it with criticism of British performances, was to irritate many senior officers in all three British services.3
Park also gave his attention to aviation affairs in Chile. In January 1935 he wrote from Buenos Aires to Sir Robert Micheli, the ambassador, to ask if his assistant, Squadron Leader Wood, might be based in the embassy and concentrate on the west coast. Micheli agreed, somewhat reluctantly, but soon found Wood’s company congenial and reacted violently in May 1936 to Park’s suggestion that Wood leave Chile for Peru. Micheli considered Peru a ‘useless’ country and, having already resisted Park’s attempts to get Wood even to visit it, was totally opposed to the idea that Wood should actually reside there. Park replied mildly. He was surprised, he wrote, that Micheli objected to his making a recommendation to the Air Ministry about the employment of his own assistant, and sent Micheli a copy of an Air Ministry letter clearly stating that Wood – like Park – had not been appointed to any one embassy, but equally to ten missions. As it happened, Wood was left in Santiago where he idled away the next two years before being retired. However, this incident showed Park’s readiness to stand up to bluster even from influential officials; he would pass many similar tests during the rest of his career.4
In June 1935, Park spent ten days in Uruguay. The object of his visit, he reported, was to find out if Uruguay intended to re-equip her Army Air Service. Rumours to that effect had reached Buenos Aires and he now confirmed them. The Minister of Finance had told him at a dinner party that plans were being made to raise the money. Park had emphasized the merits of British aircraft and engines and kept local agents for British manufacturers informed. Here in Montevideo, however, as in Buenos Aires, rumours that the British Air Ministry had forbidden the export of military aircraft were so persistent that Park suspected foreign competitors were responsible.
Park had first visited Uruguay in February that year, when about half the air force was tackling a revolt in the interior. Four Tiger Moths apparently performed well: whenever they discovered a band of mounted rebels, they dropped bombs nearby, so that the riders were forced to dismount and hide. Their horses were then driven away by one aircraft while the others reported back to the commander of the government troops, who sent out his cavalry to collect the immobilized rebels. Uruguay, wrote Park, was too small to compete in military or naval terms with her neighbours and therefore her best means of defence was a substantial, efficient air force. He had discussed the point at length with Uruguayan military officers and although they said they agreed, only eighteen out of 950 were at present allotted to the air force.
Park spent a few days in Paraguay in November 1935, meeting the President, the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and War and visiting the headquarters of the armed services and several bases. The Chaco War with Bolivia had ended in June after three years of hard fighting. Although the advantage lay with Paraguay, both countries were exhausted. According to Park, the war had convinced the government of Paraguay that it must maintain a small, well-equipped air force and a civil airline linking Paraguay with the Atlantic coast. No budget for the services had appeared since 1932, although one was promised for the following January which would authorize expenditure on aircraft and ground equipment. Three years of war, however, had left Asuncion ‘war swept’ and more impoverished than any other city Park visited in South America. No previous air attaché had been to Paraguay and he was warmly welcomed in military and civilian circles. The Chaco War had been largely fought out on the ground, but Park summarized such aerial operations as there had been and concluded that the Bolivian Air Force, distinctly superior in terms of equipment, had missed a great opportunity to play an effective part in the war.
Park spent ten days in Venezuela in April 1936 and Edward Keeling, of the British Legation in Caracas, forwarded Park’s report to the Foreign Office with the now-familiar comment that this was the first time any air attaché had visited Venezuela. With Reeling’s help, he had met all cabinet ministers and many members of the diplomatic corps within two days of arrival. He also visited army and air force bases at Maracay and met the agents for British and American aircraft companies. Park thought the poor state of road and rail links should one day make Venezuela a good aviation market. The climate and terrain were suitable and there was money in Caracas. In the absence of a military attaché, he accepted an invitation to visit the military and cavalry schools at Maracay. The army, he reported, was organized, trained and equipped for maintaining internal order rather than frontier defence. The officers were poorly paid and disliked the current régime, which forbade them to draw pay and rations for more troops than were actually on strength.5
Throughout 1935, Park fought hard to wring from the Air Ministry an aeroplane for official use. Since his arrival, he wrote in April, he had flown in a variety of military aircraft with pilots who were by no means trained to RAF standards. Some of their landings had been ‘indifferent’ and on one occasion only his insistence on obtaining a map before take-off enabled him to locate a landing-ground at dusk for a pilot who had lost his way. His predecessor had flown with South American pilots two or three times and had then given up flying altogether for the three and a half years of his stay. But South America was enormous and many air bases were difficult to visit by road or rail. Moreover, it would be better for British prestige if the air attaché arrived by air. His American colleague had his own aircraft and deprecatory remarks were being made about Park’s use of ground transport.
This request was refused, but in October Nevile Henderson, now ambassador in Buenos Aires, forwarded to the Foreign Office a second request which he strongly supported. It was true, wrote Park, that the capitals to which he was accredited were served by civil airlines, but his duties were not confined to capitals and internal airlines were non-existent. He could visit many more places by air, stay longer in each, and keep in flying practice, as a serving officer should. Micheli (in Chile) seconded Henderson’s support for Park’s request and the embassy in Rio also wrote in favour:
Miss Batten’s recent flight has provided a brilliant and welcome advertisement of the excellence of British material, and the presence of a British aeroplane, piloted by a British officer in Brazil, if only for some three months in the year, might well have a more enduring if less sensational effect.
Despite this diplomatic support, now backed by the Foreign Office and the Air Ministry, the Treasury refused to sanction an aircraft. In fact, Park was forbidden even to pilot himself and during two years in South America he managed only fifty-nine hours personally at the controls.
Nevertheless, he travelled far more widely and frequently than any of his predecessors. He made a good impression among embassy staffs and commercial agents, British and foreign. Equally important, he was well liked at the numerous military and naval bases which he visited so assiduously. He obviously considered his job an important one and thereby conveyed the impression to his hosts that he thought them important too. He was eager to be taken everywhere and shown anything and always responded with an unforced enthusiasm which encouraged officers and men to talk freely about their common interest in aircraft, hangars, workshops, tool-boxes, landing-grounds, barracks, uniforms, sports facilities, rates of pay and difficulties in recruitment and training. It was at this time that he learned to inspect air bases swiftly and comprehensively. A few years later, his mastery of that art was so complete that he even demoralized flight sergeants in the Middle East and South-east Asia, one of whom advised his commanding officer, Tell him, Sir; tell him first. That way it’ll cause less fuss than when he finds out for himself.’
Above all, Park had taken the trouble to learn Spanish and Portuguese and spoke both adequately. He was a good listener, unfailingly polite and, not least, he looked like a senior officer should: tall, slim, dignified and smartly dressed. His war record and his wife’s South American connections were other advantages. Although Dol’s Spanish was often wildly inaccurate, she had the confidence to use it fluently and such a cheerful personality that Latins found her more sympathetic than most women of the British communities. In personal appearance and fashionable dress she certainly compared with the best of them, but few cared to laugh out loud and tell jokes in public as she did. Park was not tempted either to patrol the cocktail circuits of the major capitals, waiting for work to find him, or to show the slightest condescension towards the officers he met, although he knew (and they knew) that South American aviation was primitive by the standards of Europe and the United States.
This unusual appointment also encouraged Park’s latent interest in business, which would flourish, a decade later, on his return to Buenos Aires. During 1936 he had met the then obscure Juan Perón on several occasions. They would remember each other well enough to make their next meeting, in January 1947, a friendly reunion between the President of Argentina and an Air Chief Marshal representing Britain’s most powerful aircraft company.6