Night fighter operations with Defiant 1941

[Alex Smart]

Hi,

Just to add a little nugget from The Defiant File.

PO Stevensin his Hurricane again shot down two in one night on the 7th, this time over Hull, but these successes were balanced by two of their Defiants being destroyed when a Ju88 dropped a stick of bombs across A Flight dispersal on the night of the 9th.
During this attack the oldest Defiant gunner, PO Sydney Carlin, aged 52, ran towards his aircraft intending to operate his turret as an Anti-aircraft battery, but was killed in the attack.
He has served with 264 Squadron during the Battle of Britain and was universally known as "Timbertoes" as he had lost a leg in the trenches during the First World War.
He later became a S.E.5A pilot with 74 Squadron and shot down eleven German aircraft.
He was the ONLY Defiant Gunner entitled to wear the RFC pilots wings.

Alex