General Background

The Bristol Beaufighter was designed as a two-seat long-range fighter. To speed up production many parts of the older Bristol Beaufort were used. The tail, landing gear and wings of the Beaufort were transplanted to the Beaufighter and most units were equipped with airborne radar located in the nose for night-fighting. The Mk. IF was the initial production and fitted with four 20 mm cannons in the nose along with six 7.7 mm machine guns in the wings. There were a total of 553 of the IF version produced.

The Aircraft

604 Squadron “County of Middlesex” began using Beaufighters in September 1940. Initially used to provide night defense, but in 1943 was changed to night intrusion operations. The highest scoring RAF night fighter pilot was John “Cat’s Eyes” Cunningham with 20 victories. In 1940 he was the first pilot to shoot down an airplane using radar. To cover that they had radar the British came up with a story that the pilot’s could see in the dark and it was all possible because of the vitamin A in carrots.