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In many ways the Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter defined the modern multi-role combat aircraft. It was right in the thick of things at various critical turning points of the war, in every theatre. Night fighter, anti-shipping strike aircraft, maritime air superiority fighter and ground attack weapons platform – the Beaufighter redefined every role it took on. This is despite the fact it was a hastily designed lash-up, a modestly performing oversized ‘heavy fighter’, which might easily have been parked with the Westland Whirlwind in obscurity. Yet, as an aircraft it would prove to be the perfect platform that enabled a huge leap forward in the RAF’s night defences and Coastal Command’s anti-shipping patrols. It would also be one of Britain’s most successful exports of the war, both in its ability to perform in every theatre asked of it, and its key role with Allied air forces like the RAAF and even the USAAF, with which it served until the end of the war. Through the exploits of many of its crews, Beaufighter explores how the aircraft was exactly what was needed, whether that was when it was realised that AI (airborne intercept) radar was key to winning the night air war and defeating the Blitz, shredding Axis logistics on land, sea and air in the Mediterranean, brutalising the Japanese army in the jungles of Burma and New Guinea, or smashing the Norwegian ore convoys which represented a life-line for Hitler’s Third Reich. Intriguingly, the Beaufighter’s story does not end there, as the author explores the indirect, yet characteristically blunt, impact that this brute of an aircraft played on events as momentous as Indian independence and the Battle of Stalingrad. This book tells the whole story of the Bristol Beaufighter – from a particularly overweight ugly duckling to one of the deadliest warbirds of the Second World War.
