Robert Verkaik

Why You Won't Get Rich

It is a tale which pits the serial escapers of Colditz against the traitor in their own ranks and the Gestapo against the double agents of MI9. Britain's hopes are pinned on two of the war's unlikeliest heroes - a Jewish Glaswegian dentist and an East End black-marketeer in a story which ranges from Auschwitz to the Cabarets of Berlin. Colditz is an iconic part of the British WW2 story, up there with Spitfires and D-Day and the subject of many books, films and TV programs. This strangely neglected facet of the WW2 story, but with a bigger story which for all sorts of reasons (not least of which were live security issues) has never been told and which Robert Verkaik has uncovered for the first time.

The Traitor of Colditz

In 2020, for the first time in its history, UNICEF began feeding hungry children in the UK whose capital city boasts more billionaires than any place on earth. Soaring rents, unfair taxation and a growing gig economy have brought about unprecedented economic shame: Amazon warehouse workers living in tents, nurses turning to foodbanks, London firemen commuting hundreds of miles to work. Even those higher up the ladder are losing their grip on the life they were promised. Barristers take home less than the minimum wage and doctors are starting out with £100,000 student debts on salaries lower than the national average. We’re all facing a new economic phenomenon - in-work poverty. At the same time a generation of young professionals is coming to terms with never being able to own even the cheapest home in their area. Why You Won't Get Rich tells the stories of people at the bottom as well as the top of our economy, revealing how capitalism in its current form is too blunt an instrument to tackle Britain's epidemic of inequality. The only way to reverse the damage is if people feel they have a financial stake in society.

How Capitalism Broke its Contract with Hard Work

How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain

Posh Boys

It was a defining moment, the first time ‘Jihadi John’ appeared. Suddenly Islamic State had a face and the whole world knew the extent of their savagery. Weeks later, when his identity was revealed, Robert Verkaik was shocked to realise that this was a man he’d interviewed years earlier. Back in 2010, Mohammed Emwazi was a twenty-one-year-old IT graduate who claimed the security services were ruining his life. They had repeatedly approached him, his family and his fiancée. Had they been tracking an already dangerous extremist or did they push him over the edge? In the aftermath of the US air strike that killed Emwazi in November 2015, Verkaik’s investigation leads him to deeply troubling questions. What led Emwazi to come to him for help in the first place? And why do hundreds of Britons want to join Islamic State? In an investigation both frightening and urgent, Verkaik goes beyond the making of one terrorist to examine the radicalisation of our youth and to ask what we can do to stop it happening in future.

The Making of a Terrorist

Jihadi John

'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.

The Untold Story of the Battle of Britain

Defiant

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 'A riveting and compelling portrait of Mohammed Emwazi on his journey to the heart of darkness.' Andrew Hosken, author of Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State 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 'A trenchant j'accuse against the old-boy chumocracy . . . Posh Boys is, for a book about public schools, decidedly comprehensive.' Guardian 'Inspired, committed, careful and kind.' Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1% The families of the R. A. F. servicemen killed flying Defiants believed that their husbands, brothers and sons had died in vain, but the truth is that their vital contribution to battle of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain has been erased from the official history. Robert Verkaik has uncovered new records, including top secret memos written by Hugh Dowding, the head of Fighter Command, combat reports, pilot logs and recordings of the last interviews with Defiant crews, as well as traced the relatives of Defiant pilots, to tell the story of the Battle of Britain as it has never been told before. In 1940, when Britain was preparing to defend itself against the threatened Nazi invasion, the nation put its faith in three frontline fighter planes. Much has been written of the heroic feats and sacrifices of the R. A. F. pilots who took off in their Spitfires and Hurricanes against the larger Luftwaffe, but what of the third British fighter, the Boulton Paul Defiant? Very little has been written about this fighter plane and the brave airmen who flew it. Instead, history has treated the aircraft as a military design failure and its participation in the battle as an unmitigated disaster, costing the lives of dozens of young pilots and gunners. But this official version of the Battle of Britain underplays the heroism of the airmen who flew the Boulton Paul Defiant against all the odds. It also fails to show how the Defiant was as much a victim of political in-fighting and mismanagement as it was of the much faster German Messerschmitts. But perhaps the greatest omission is the awkward fact that a Defiant squadron still holds the record for shooting down the highest number of enemy aicraft in one day. Many of the Defiant crews paid the ultimate price in achieving this success. Following the quiet withdrawal of the Defiant from the frontline of the Battle of Britain on the 30th August, its story would not be allowed to mar the glorious victory won by the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Robert Verkaik reveals how the stories that have grown up around the Defiant mask some inconvenient truths.

Robert Verkaik

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