Defiants guns forward
When I joined the Air Cadets at Kenley (1960) we had an ex Defiant gunner as a CI. I recall he was a bit miffed that no one really knew of the type (Compared with the Hurricane and Spitfire) but I well remember his comments regarding the job in the turret. The placing of the guns forward was to be the gunners 'final' action if he was unable to operate the turret in the normal way due injury, and apparently enabled the pilot to have some limited forward fire option. It is not surprising that the type was forgotten as no airframes were on display as gate guards and it did not feature in the post war Battle of Britain accounts/films/books. At the time '1960' there were only a couple of Hurricanes and half a dozen Spitfires that were still flying but those types were evident as Gate Guards countrywide. As a night fighter it was only as successful as technology at the time allowed, and would not have had the facility (or space) to fit the eventual radar equipment. Our defences in 1940 were not geared up to having an enemy only 20 miles away, and the Defiant should never had been used to deal with 'fighter escorted bombers' for obvious reasons. Reflecting on the situation decades later i was quite lucky to have actually spoken to a surviving Defiant gunner, as there could have only been a few around by 1960.