Boulton Paul Defiant N1801 was the first aircraft specifically allocated to pilot Desmond Hughes and as such, he was allowed to embellish it with his own personal markings. A son of the small coastal town of Donaghadee in County Down, Northern Ireland, Hughes painted the Red Hand of Ulster in a white shield on his aircraft’s port-side engine cowling, which also sported five victory markings painted under the canopy. As one of the five RAF squadrons funded by India’s Madras Presidency, N1801 proudly marked this association by also carrying the name ‘Coimbatore II’ on the engine cowling, making this a highly distinctive nightfighter. From the memoirs of Desmond Hughes, he describes how he used this aircraft until the squadron upgraded to the more powerful Defiant Mk.II, but how N1801 was extremely reliable, with its Merlin engine never so much as coughing at him during operation.Frederick Desmond Hughes would go on to post further success in the night air war flying Beaufighters and Mosquitos, eventually ending the war as one of the RAF’s most decorated airmen and able to boast a victory tally of 18.5 enemy aircraft destroyed. Adding further interest to the exploits of this exceptional airman, another story associated with Hughes is that he was one of the first WWII airmen to take his pet dog on an operational sortie with him. His beloved mongrel ‘Scruffy’ was dressed in flying overalls for warmth during his unusual trip and is thought to have enjoyed at least one night sortie in an RAF Beaufighter.