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Man with a Mission: Oswald Pirow and South African Airways, 1933–1939*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Robert L. McCormack
Robert L. McCormack
Affiliation:
University of Winnipeg
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Extract

Oswald Pirow was an active and influential cabinet minister in the Hertzog administration in South Africa for more than a decade. Perhaps more than anyone else in office, Pirow shaped the new aggressive Union policies in external matters which stressed a ‘South Africa First’ ideology. Given a free hand by Hertzog, and as minister responsible for defence and transport, Pirow aimed to weaken the British connexion, enhance South Africa's image, and expand Union influence throughout ‘white’ Africa to the north. The agent charged to carry out these new policies was South African Airways, organized by Pirow in 1934 as Africa 's first national airline. As the Union 's ‘chosen instrument’, SAA was used by Pirow to challenge British paramountcy in the Rhodesias and East Africa, in direct conflict with Britain 's own struggling Imperial Airways. The rivalry was for routes and services, mail and passengers, and ultimately for prestige. By 1939, Pirow 's airline was established in operation from Kenya southward, and winning the struggle with its fleet of modern Junkers aircraft. Pirow was the promoter, the organizer and the hard bargainer with whom the British had to deal time and time again. For technical and financial reasons, Imperial Airways could seldom match Pirow 's ambitions, and on the eve of World War II, Pirow could claim great success for his air-minded policy. Only the coming of the war was to remove Pirow and his policy from the scene.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 1979 , pp. 543 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 Of special interest, Kruger, D. W., The Age of the Generals (Cape Town, 1958)Google Scholar, and South African Parties and Politics 1910–1960 (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Hancock, W. K., Survey of Commonwealth Affairs, i (Oxford, 1937)Google Scholar, and Smuts, ii (Cambridge, 1968).Google Scholar

2 Pirow held the following portfolios: Justice, 1929–33, Railways, and Harbours, , 1933–1938Google Scholar, Defence, 1933–39, and Industry and Commerce, 1939.

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4 The end came when Pirow and a handful of followers did not contest the 1943 election. Some background is provided in Bunting, Brian, The Rise of the South African Reich (Harmondsworth, 1964), 56–7Google Scholar, 110–11.

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44 On these airlines, McCormack, ‘Aviation and empire’, chs. five and six.

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68 Other problems included protracted and difficult dealings with the Egyptian government, and a host of technical and supply concerns in the organization of new facilities.

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