The Defiant - much promise... bit of a flop

I grew up next to a farm in Leicestershire. Our garden was overlooked by a barn which had its manufacturer’s nameplate at the top. It was Boulton Paul (or Boulton & Paul) – I can't quite be sure. 

But I soon discovered that Boulton Paul was famous for more than just ageing barns in Midlands farmyards. A casual reading of the Airfix catalogue, probably in about 1975, revealed that Boulton Paul had produced an aircraft that had served (albeit unspectacularly) in the Battle of Britain. That kind of link between past and present was gripping to an eight-year-old.

The Defiant, as a matter of fact, had a rather glorious start to its career. It looked like a conventional fighter plane of the day, but actually had a rear gun turret. So, if you were a Luftwaffe pilot and didn't know that you would come sneaking up behind and get a blast of lead up your nose courtesy of the rear gunner.

But then, in the words of www.battleofbritain.net, ‘the Luftwaffe pilots got their measure and the glory days of the Defiant were over... They were to become death traps for their crews, incapable of dog fighting, and they became far too slow in getting away from the incoming enemy.’ 

Worse still, the Defiant was hard to get out of once it was shot up. Generally all a bit of a bad show.