Percy Francis Westerman (1876 – 22 February 1959) was an English author of children's literature, with a prolific output.
At the age of 70 he was reluctantly forced by a fall to leave his houseboat for dry land, but he continued writing apace.
He lived on board a houseboat – a converted Thames barge – on the River Frome at Wareham in Dorset, where he wrote the majority of his books.
He was an inventor, who had discovered a new kind of lighter-than-air gas that he called "helia", which was much lighter than helium or hydrogen.
Eventually he used his flying submarine to win a war between his South American country and its belligerent neighbour.
Similarly Westerman's South American conflict reflects the wars between Paraguay and Uruguay.
During the Second World War he commanded the Arne platoon of the 7th Dorset Home Guard battalion (Wareham) from June 1940 until 26 December 1942.
[7] Illustrations by Edward S. Hodgson for A Lad of Grit: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times (1908).