Wingleader Photo Archive 45. Boulton Paul Defiant in Worldwide Two service

When we first launched this series, the Boulton Paul Defiant was high up the list of potential subjects. The problem was always a lack of enough photos to do a decent job. Apart from a few well known Press sessions with 264 Squadron, the Defiant was rarely photographed, especially when compared to other RAF front line aircraft. It was only this year, when discussing potential subjects with our regular author Andy Thomas, did we realise that we finally had enough photos between us to do the Defiant squadrons justice.

The result is a very interesting and important exploration of the Defiant’s operational service during WW2. We discovered many things that we never knew before and have identified and corrected many commonly held myths about this classic two seat fighter. In fact, it’s always a good test, once we’ve finished a book like this, to trawl the internet for photos of model kits to see if the details we have uncovered are included in the models. We can say quite confidently that nearly all Defiant models that are currently displayed on the internet are inaccurate. As you read through this book, hopefully you’ll see and understand why.

We’ve arranged the photos in a rough chronological order which also happens to fit the aircraft’s operational uses, going from Day Fighter to Night Fighter to ASR and ECM duties before ending its career as a Target Tug for the rest of the war.