Great replies thanks, I forgot about LORAN but would have wondered about its usefulness far away from the master/slave stations.
I ask because as a kid we flew ( with parents) Bogota-London-Bogota in the summer of 1961. Island hopping in the Caribbean would have posed no problems using local aids, Barbados if I recall correctly was the last stop ( leaving around 18:00) before the overnight long Atlantic haul over the Azores to UK hence my curiosity - Also remember the return flight left London quite late around 23:00 so it was also night flying to Bermuda then onwards to the rest of the Caribbean stops eventually making landfall in SA at Caracas then inland over the northern Andes to Bogota.