'Robert Verkaik makes a revisionist case for an unsung aircraft,
the Boulton Paul Defiant. This two-seat gun-turret fighter is,
argues Verkaik, the forgotten fighter of Dunkirk and the Battle of
Britain; the effectiveness as well as the courage of its crews is
overlooked in standard accounts. To advance his case, he notes that
a Defiant squadron still holds the record for the number of enemy
aircraft shot down in a single day, with a claimed figure of 38'
Times 'Robert Verkaik tells the story of the Battle of Britain's
unlikeliest hero with verve and phenomenal grasp of detail. He
brings the Defiant fighter back into focus as an important part of
the victorious RAF in the hour of its greatest trial' Mark Urban
'Meticulously researched and rich in human and social as well as
military interest, Defiant fills a crucial gap in our understanding
of that most perilous time' David Kynaston, author of Austerity
Britain 'Firmly establishes the aircraft's role in those crucial
aerial battles of 1940 and elevates the brave aircrews who fought
and died in their forgotten Defiants, to rank alongside their
comrades in the better remembered Hurricanes and Spitfires.' David
Fairhead, director of Spitfire 'Verkaik is an excellent guide,
making his case with a restrained passion, taking us through the
inter-war rearmament before cataloguing the muddled thinking, the
political infighting, the inter-service and personality rivalries.
His research was clearly a labour of love, leaving no Whitehall
paper or airman's letter unturned in his search for the truth, and
he never forgets the human dimension behind the losses' Simon
Humphreys, Mail on Sunday, five stars 'Defiant is both a stirring
testament to the courage of the men who flew them and a welcome new
examination of one of the Second World War's most famous conflicts'
Alexander Larman, Observer Praise for Jihadi John: 'An exemplary
account . . . The book's most important contribution is to
highlight the difficulties faced by the intelligence services . . .
a first-class primer on Muslim extremism in Britain.' Max Hastings,
Sunday Times Praise for Posh Boys: 'The latest in the series of
powerful books on the divisions in modern Britain, and will take
its place on many bookshelves beside Reni Eddo-Lodge's Why I'm No
Longer Talking to White People About Race and Owen Jones's Chavs.'
Andrew Marr, Sunday Times 'Inspired, committed, careful and kind.'
Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1% In this startling
new perspective on the Battle of Britain, Robert Verkaik reveals
the surprising truth about the battle's forgotten fighter, the
Boulton Paul Defiant. The crucial role played by the Spitfire and
the Hurricane has been exhaustively recorded, but, to date, next to
nothing has been written about the third British fighter which took
part in the battle. By writing from the unique perspective of the
pilots who flew the Defiant and their air-gunners, Verkaik helps to
set the record straight. The Air Staff regarded the Defiant as a
state-of-the-art bomber destroyer and wanted to equip a third of
all Fighter Command squadrons with this new plane. But the head of
Fighter Command, Hugh Dowding, had other ideas and went to war with
Whitehall over its plan to saddle him with hundreds of 'obsolete'
turret fighters. Then at Dunkirk, a Defiant squadron scored a huge
success against the Luftwaffe by shooting down more German planes
in one day than any other RAF unit before or since. Fighter
Command, enthusiastically urged on by the Air Ministry, now
committed its third fighter to the coming air battle over southern
England. In the desperate dogfights of the battle, Defiants shot
down both German bombers and fighters but suffered heavy losses too
- one squadron was almost wiped out when it was ambushed by a
superior force of Messerschmitt 109s. On 30 August 1940 all Defiant
squadrons were withdrawn from the front line. The families of the
Defiant air crews believed that their husbands, brothers and sons
had died in vain, but the truth is that their vital contribution to
the battle over Dunkirk and their role in the Battle of Britain has
been all but erased from the official history. The story of the
Defiant has not been allowed to mar the glorious victory won by the
Spitfire and the Hurricane. But Verkaik has uncovered new records,
including top-secret memos written by Hugh Dowding and his deputy
Keith Park as well as correspondence with the Air Staff, combat and
squadron reports, pilot logs and recordings of the last interviews
with Defiant crews. He has also succeeded in tracing relatives of
Defiant pilots and gunners to tell the story of the Battle of
Britain as it has never been told before. He reveals how the myths
which have grown up around the Defiant mask some inconvenient
truths.
General
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