The Boulton Paul Defiant

THE Defiant is a two‐seater single‐engined tractor, low‐wing monoplane armed with 4 belt‐fed ·303 in. Browning machine guns mounted in a dorsal power‐operated turret just over the trailing edge of the main plane. The prototype was first flown in 1938 and the machine first came into prominence in May, 1940, when it made a dramatic debut when a squadron equipped with it shot down 37 enemy machines in one day. Since then it has been used almost exclusively for night fighting, scoring a striking success on the night of May 8–9, 1940, when 8 enemy raiders were shot down from Defiants.