The 24 Sqdn Newsletter has a piece on Churchill's Skymaster (interestingly it was an early model still with fuel tanks in the fuselage)
http://www.24sqnassociation.royalair...ds/24iss10.pdf
and there's a series of articles by Churchill's Navigator Wing Cmdr John Mitchell from about Issue 12 (mainly Yorks)
Newsletter Articles of 24 Sqn Association
BOAC's competitor KLM had civilian DC-4s on order from Douglas and was loaned surplus C-54s by President Truman until they were delivered, operating as 'The Netherlands Government Air Service' they started flying to the Far East as early as November 1945
The Hermes/Hastings was Handley Page's response to the Skymaster....it probably didn't help the Hermes that it was delivered late and overtaken by the Canadair Argonaut which was delivered rapidly leaving BOAC with more than enough aircraft for a change....I can't believe the Hermes was as bad as it was painted ( surely not as much as 20 degrees nose-up attitude?)...the RAF got on OK with the Hastings