Herbert Jaffa was a 21-year-old signaller with the U. S. Army when he arrived in Townsville in April, 1942. Townsville at War is his memoir of this time. The book centres on his relationship with a Townsville girl to whom he became engaged, but also reveals the effects of the war on North Queensland and describes his experiences in the New Guinea campaign. Jaffa's contact with Townsville led to an abiding interest in Australian literature and in 1980, as Professor Emeritus of the Humanities at New York University, he returned to give a series of lectures on Kenneth Slessor at James Cook University. Townsville at War grew out of these lectures and moves between his memories of the war years and his return to Townsville more than thirty years later.