The war is over. Hitler is dead. And yet his evil legacy lives on. Saffron Courtney and her beloved husband Gerhard only just survived the brutal conflict, but Gerhard’s Nazi-supporting brother, Konrad, is still free and determined to regain power. As a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse develops, a plot against the couple begins to stir. One that will have ramifications throughout Europe. Further afield in Kenya, the last outcrop of the colonial empire is feeling the stirrings of rebellion. As the situation becomes violent, and the Courtney family home is under threat, Leon Courtney finds himself caught between two powerful sides – and a battle for the freedom of a country. Wilbur Smith’s LEGACY OF WAR – the action-packed new book in the Courtney Series and the sequel to Courtney’s War – is a nail-biting story of courage, bravery, rebellion and war from the master of adventure fiction.
The story of the intelligence war in South Africa during the Second World War is one of suspense, drama and dogged persistence. In 1939, when the Union of South Africa entered the war on Britain’s side, the German government secretly reached out to the political opposition, and to the leadership of the anti-war movement, the Ossewabrandwag. The Nazis’ aim was to spread sedition in South Africa and to undermine the Allied war effort. The critical stragegic importance of the sea route round the Cape of Good Hope meant that the Germans were also after naval intelligence. Soon U-boat packs were sent to operate in South African waters, to deadly effect. With the help of the Ossewabrandwag, a network of German spies was established to gather important political and military intelligence and relay it back to the Reich. Agents would use a variety of channels to send coded messages to Axis diplomats in neighbouring Mozambique. Meanwhile, police detectives and MI5 agents hunted in vain for illegal wireless transmitters. HITLER’S SPIES is an account of German intelligence networks that operated in wartime South Africa. It also details the hunt in post-war Europe for witnesses to help the government bring charges of high treason against key Ossewabrandwag members.The book is written by Dr Evert Kleynhans, a senior lecturer in the Department of Military History at the Faculty of Military Science at Stellenbosch University. He is the former head of the Records, Archives and Museums Division at North-West University.
The wars of Neall Ellis, helicopter pilot and mercenary. A former South African Air Force pilot who received a Honoris Crux during the Border War and later became a private military contractor, Neall Ellis is one of South Africa’s best-known combat aviators. He participated in several major Border War operations, including Operation Protea, Super and Meebos. Apart from flying Alouette helicopter gunships in Angola, he has fought in the Balkan War (for Islamic forces) and tried to resuscitate Mobutu Sese Seko’s ailing air force during his final days ruling the Congo. In war-torn Sierra Leone Ellis played a major role in the late 1990s and early 2000s in the fight against the rebel forces of Foday Sankoh. Twice he single-handedly turned the enemy back from the gates of Freetown, effectively preventing the rebels from overrunning the capital. Ellis was also the first private military contractor to work hand-in-glove with British ground and air assets in a modern guerrilla war and used his helicopter numerous times to fly elite Special Air Service (SAS) personnel on low-level reconnaissance missions into the interior of the diamond-rich country, for the simple reason that no other pilot knew the country – and the enemy – better than he did. Later in Afghanistan, Ellis flew helicopter support missions for three years where he had more close shaves than in his entire previous four decades put together. Al J Venter recounts these hair-raising missions, some of which he accompanied Ellis on as a war correspondent.
