The Boulton Paul Defiant is a British interceptor aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II. The Defiant was designed and built by Boulton Paul Aircraft as a "turret fighter", without any fixed forward-firing guns, also found in the Blackburn Roc of the Royal Navy. In combat, the Defiant was found to be reasonably effective at destroying bombers but was vulnerable to the Luftwaffe's more manoeuvrable, single-seat Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters. The lack of forward-firing armament proved to be a great weakness in daylight combat and its potential was realised only when it was converted to a night fighter. It eventually equipped thirteen squadrons in this role, compared to just two squadrons as a day-fighter. In mid-1942 it was replaced by better performing night-fighters, the Bristol Beaufighter and de Havilland Mosquito. The Defiant continued to find use in gunnery training, target towing, electronic countermeasures and air-sea rescue. Among RAF pilots it had the nickname "Daffy". The gunner's hatch was in the rear of the turret, which had to be rotated to the side for entry and exit. There was not enough room in the turret for the gunner to wear a seat-type or back pack parachute so gunners were provided with a special all-in-one garment nicknamed the "rhino suit". Frederick "Gus" Platts, an air gunner who served in 230, 282 and 208 squadrons, stated: "The Rhino suit we had to wear on Defiants was a bear but I couldn't come up with an alternative, even though it killed dozens of us. I forget the details of it but we could not have sat on our chute or even keep it nearby as in other turrets, so you wore – all in one – an inner layer that fitted a little like a wetsuit of today. The chute fitted around this, and then the dinghy and the outer clothing. There was inner webbing and pockets that literally fell apart (I presume) when one bailed out". A total of 1,064 Defiants were built. Twenty eight served with RAAF Squadron 456. For more information omn the Defiant and its variants, click here.
