The traditional narrative of the Defiant's operational performance has it that after some initial success because German fighter pilots were taken by surprise by its guns being able to fire backwards, the Defiants began to suffer severe losses which quickly saw them withdrawn from the battle and put to use as a nightfighter instead.
"The night skies were now the front line and the Defiant had not only been designed from the outset as a nightfighter, but through the dark months of the Blitz it proved to be the best available at the time."
"The first one scored a few hits on us and then a second
Nightfighter came round.
Army had many
nightfighter squadrons, the Navy and Marine Corps certainly could point to their own successful units.
These measures failed--the intruder raids were ineffective, the
nightfighters had no airborne radar, and the settings for the jamming signals were miscalculated.
But, for anyone interested in the development of nightfighters by the Marines and what it took to make it happen, the book is useful.
While the first nightfighter squadron to deploy, VMF(N)-531 did in fact fly the PV-1, it was soon recognized that this platform was wholly inadequate and something more was needed.
Starting with the beginning of the war when equipment for locating enemy aircraft was relatively unsophisticated, he puts the spotlight on many of the 120,000 men and women who helped British
nightfighters and anti-aircraft gunners by illuminating enemy aircraft.
He also provides a detailed section on the various types of RAF aircraft that were used as nightfighters and their various models of air intercept radars, complete with performance specifications and silhouettes.
The History of Air Intercept (AI) Radar and the British Nightfighter, 1935-1959.