Saffron's War — Frederick E. Smith

A new series by the author of 633 SQUADRON, introducing Corporal Alan Saffron, RAF ...

Only war could produce a story as bizarre as this. Alan Saffron, ex-aircrew, is desperate to get back into action, but instead he's posted to Cape Town as an instructor, along with Ken Bickers, a friend about as hazardous as an enemy sniper, who considers Saffron a jonah for trouble.

Within half an hour of arrival, Saffron's jonah strikes, and he makes an enemy of Warrant Officer Kruger, who turns Saffron's cushy posting into total warfare. With recruits as wild as Hottentots, obsolete aircraft, and Cape Town's infamous watch dog Nuisance, Saffron's sojourn in South Africa becomes a mixture of adventure, danger and pure hilarity...

Frederick E. Smith (1919-2012) joined the R.A.F. in 1939 as a wireless operator/air gunner and commenced service in early 1940, serving in Britain, Africa and finally the Far East. At the end of the war he married and worked for several years in South Africa before returning to England to fulfill his life-long ambition to write. Two years later, his first play was produced and his first novel published. Since then, he wrote over forty novels, about eighty short stories and two plays. Two novels, 633 Squadron and The Devil Doll, were made into films.