Bristol Beaufighter, part fourteen. Beaufighter Mk. IC

 

As the bombing campaign over mainland Europe increased after the Battle of Britain, both Bristol Aeroplane Company and the Royal Air Force (RAF) began to consider additional roles for the Beaufighter, as it was seen the ideal long range fighter to strike upon enemy bases and shipping lanes in such far places as Norway. 
To this purpose long range fuel tanks were fitted on a Beaufighter Mk. I registered as R5152, which had its guns replaced by fuel tanks. This was accompanied by additional changes such as an extra table and instruments being added in the rear position to help the navigator in long over-water flights, a D/F loop in lieu of the gun camera. An initial batch of eighty modified Beaus Mk. I were completed, with the suffix of a letter 'C' (standing for 'Coastal') added to the Mk. I official denomination. The machines of this initial batch had a temporal Wellington fifty gallon (227 L) fuel tank mounted on the fuselage floor between the gun bays. Standard wing fuel tanks were not ready until later.
The Mk. IC saw service for the first time in late March 1941 serving with No. 252 Squadron, shooting down a Focke-Wulf Fw. 200 on 16th April, and marking it as the first victim of the Mk. IC. In June 1941 No. 143 Squadron became the second unit to employ the Mk. IC. 
The Mk. IC became so important in RAF's Coastal Command that Bristol adapted the airframe to carry various fittings for the singular task of striking enemy shipping and kept on allocating the 'C' for 'Coastal'. 
Due to the troubling situation growing in the Mediterranean, No. 252 Squadron was sent with its Beaufighters to Malta in May 1941 and was soon followed by No. 272 Squadron with its Mk. ICs and Nos. 46 and 89 with Mk. IFs. When on Malta, No. 252 saw heavy action when escorting convoys and supporting the Syria-Lebanon Campaign. Later, they were rebased to Egypt, where they claimed their first enemy aircraft shot down on 24th July. 
As the Beaufighter showed that effective night interception was possible when the right aircraft and equipment were ready, the Mk. I performed a wide variety of roles including reconnaissance, ground attack and maritime strikes, relying primarily in its heavy armament. 
A total of 954 Beaufighters Mk. I were manufactured and were employed a by twenty-eight RAF squadrons, operating in most of World War 2's theatres of war. 

Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
2nd Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part thirteen. Beaufighter Mk. IF

 

As the Luftwaffe switched from day to night bombing at the Fall of 1940, airborne radar sets were given priority, specially installed in a suitable night fighter airframe. The Royal Air Force (RAF) had few aircraft suitable for that role, although the Bristol Blenheim was being employed as an interim night interceptor. The situation called for a large aircraft which could host the radar installation with its correspondent operator, and with enough performance to catch up with the German intruder aircraft, something that the Blenheim couldn't do it effectively, so the Beaufighter offered the RAF an ideal answer.
Back in late 1940, aircraft's performance in night fighting combat wasn't so important and the Fighter Interception Unit (FIU) at RAF Ford managed to fit an Airborne Interception (AI) Mk. IV radar into a single Beaufighter Mk. IF (the letter 'F' stands for 'Fighter') for trials.
Beaufighter Mk. IF R2059 flew the first night interception sortie of the type, while still assigned to the FIU on the night of 4th to 5th September 1940. The first interception mission performed by a RAF Beaufighter squadron was on 17th to 18th September when No. 29 squadron based at RAF Digby sent up R2077 on patrol. However no enemy aircraft were found during that first sortie. Anyway, on 25th October No. 219 squadron recorded the first night kill by a Beaufighter. This was followed by some more victories, albeit the Beaufighters in which they were scored were not equipped with an AI radar, so it wasn't until 19th November 1940 when an AI assisted kill was achieved. During the following six months, radar-equipped Beaufighters took down around twelve enemy aircraft. 
A total of four squadrons were equipped, total or partially, with the Beaufighter, to test the effectiveness of the AI radar, those were, Nos. 29, 25, 219 and 604 squadrons. On 8th September 1941 No. 600 Squadron, which was specialized in night fighting, also received its first Beaufighters IFs. 
On 7th December 1940 the 100th Beaufighter was completed at Filton factory and the 200th exemplar was followed on 10th May 1941. By that date production was licensed to Fairey's shadow factory at Stockport and the Ministry of Aircraft Production plant at Weston-super-Mare at a steady pace. 

An experimental variant of the Beaufighter, the Mk. V was, basically a Beaufighter Mk. II with the turret taken from a Boulton-Paul Defiant attached. During March 1941 this experiment was carried out because, theoretically, it gave the Beaufighter more defensive firepower in the form of four 0.303 inch Browning machine guns. Furthermore, that turret was going to replace not just all of the wing guns, but also one pair of cannons. The observer's dorsal blister was faired flush with the fuselage which retained the lower edge 'scoop out' of the original design. 
Even if the turret arrangement showed its merit when attacking Luftwaffe's bombers at night, as proved by the Defiants and, on the other side, by the Schrage Musik upward firing cannon, the advantages were not obvious enough to justify a serial production of the Mk. V and it was realized that the standard Beaufighter could undertake interception duties with its standard armament well enough.
Two Mk. II airframes, powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin, were fitted and operationally tested, the first one assigned to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) and the FIU and then passed on to No. 406 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). The second machine was assigned straight to No. 600 Squadron where it served until it was lost to an accident on 29th September 1941.
A&AEE wrote a handling report about the turret Beaufighter in August 1941, where it stressed the drop in top speed of the Mk. V variant. Squadron usage reports also revealed that the turret obstructed the pilot's scape hatch, so all Beaufighters Mk. V were modified with a floor hatch which could be unlocked in case of emergency and forced back by the slipstream to form a windshield for the crew, each member of which then dropped straight through the hatch. However, no further Mk. Vs were built. 

Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
2nd Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part twelve. Inception and early operational history

 

Note: This is our last post until September. See you back then!
The Bristol Beaufighter was a British twin-engined World War 2 heavy-fighter/strike aircraft that was initially conceived as a fighter variant of the Bristol Beaufort.
Its inception dates back to 1938 when the Beaufort was about to undertake its maiden flight, Bristol's chief designer, Leslie Frise and Roy Fadden, his assistant, put forward a design study on the Beaufort to check how much of it could be adapted into an interim fighter, as it was expected during the Munich Crisis, that the Royal Air Force (RAF) would be short of fighters in case of war. 
This idea was well received by the Air Staff because, theoretically, it reduced the time and cost for an entire new fighter, so a few days later Bristol was asked to build four prototypes of the so-called "Beaufort fighter".
Given that some preliminary studies have been carried out by Bristol of a heavy fighter powered by their own Hercules engine, this design, called 'Type 156', employed the Beaufort's wing, tail and landing gear and Bristol's engineers at Filton (where the headquarters of the company were located) managed to refine the design of the Type 156 in only six months to produce the first prototype.
The design differed so much from that of the Beaufort. A new narrower fuselage was added to the Beaufort's components, with a short solid nose housing a single-seat cockpit. A dorsal position for an observer was included aft the cockpit. 
With a serial number of R2052 , the Type 156's prototype made its maiden flight on 17th July 1939 and, although initially it was going to be armed with four 20 mm (.78 in) cannons, those were never installed in the prototype during the first flight. 
Now, further refinement work on the prototype was needed to convert the Beaufighter into an operational combat aircraft and almost a year had to pass before the RAF received its first operational Beaufighter. During that time Bristol refined the design, boosting its performance, which with early Hercules engines was similar to that of the Hawker Hurricane, the most numerous RAF fighter during the early war. 
Given that only Hercules III engines were immediately available, and they gave the Beaufighter the 'Hurricane performance', the Air Ministry issued a specification, F.17/39 which set up the production chain for the Beaufighter and ordered a first batch of 300 aircraft. Given that the engine supply was not certain, agreements were made to foresee another variant powered by the in-line Rolls-Royce Griffon engines, with minimum modifications to the wings being made, as an alternative to the radial Hercules engines.
Four prototypes were built by Bristol, R2052 to R2055, which served for pre-testing purposes, with some handicaps in testing during the summer of 1940 as the Battle of Britain progressed. The second prototype, R2053 was also unarmed, but the third prototype, R2054 had four 20 mm cannons installed with its blast tubes integrated under the forward fuselage, together with armour plate, a bullet-proof windshield and a gun camera. This camera became very distinctive as it produced a bulge on top of the nose.
The first three prototypes were tested by the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) in April and June 1940 and, except for some slow speeds, it achieved good test results. 
In order to improve Beaufighter's performance, while the Hercules VI engine became available, was to fir alternative power plants to the fuselage, as previously agreed upon, so the most logical alternate engine was the Rolls-Royce Merlin, the same one that powered both the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire. 
After making some modifications to the engine nacelles, a new model, which was designated as Beaufighter Mk. II, was made with the Merlin XX engine installed on the 450th Beaufighter of the 1.218 Beaufighters on the Filton production line by mid-1940 and three airframes, R2058, R2061 (this one powered by the Rolls-Royce Exe nacelle engines and nacelle configuration) and R2062, were put aside to serve as testbeds for the Mk. II.
Regarding armament, only the first fifty production Beaus were fitted with just four 20 mm Hispano cannons, but subsequent Mk. Is had six additional .303 in Browning machine guns placed in the wings, two on the port side and four on the starboard. This made the Beaufighter the most heavily armed fighter of the RAF for the whole war. 
Some additional solutions were investigated to improve Beaus' performance, such as fitting twin fins on a single prototype, R2268, in order to improve directional stability, however trials were not satisfactory and no production on this configuration was undertaken.

Sources:
1st Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action
2nd Scale Aircraft Modelling - Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part eleven. The Beau in Polish hands.

 

To write about the Beaufighter working with Poland, means to write about the history of No. 307 Polish Night Fighter Squadron, as it was the only Polish Squadron of the Royal Air Force (RAF) which employed the Beau.
In spring 1941 the No. 307 Polish Night Fighter Squadron was rebased to RAF Clyst Honiton, Exeter, in south-west England. Initially they were equipped with the Boulton-Paul Defiant turret fighter and, in spite of some early success, the squadron's staff complained about the Defiant, as it was clearly obsolete and it could not cope with the increasing pace of the war. 
Squadron Commander, Captain Antonowicz requested officially more modern equipment, so in August 1941 his petition for Beaufighters was accepted. However, as Antonowicz did not know the Beaufighter well, he applied for the Beau Mk. IIF from the Group Headquarters, which he thought it was better than the Mk. I. 
As that unfortunate decision could not be reversed, two weeks later the Beaus Mk. IIF began to land at RAF Clyst Honiton airfield. 
Flying this type, the squadron began to suffer a number of losses to aerial accidents, with Cpt. Antonowicz falling victim to one of them. The increasing number of accidents, arrived to the ears of the Commander of Polish Fighter Aviation in Great Britain, Col. Stefan Pawlikowski,  who stated that "a good pilot can fly even on a barn door", meaning that the causes for the accidents should be attributed to the pilots for not having enough control on the aircraft, and not to any design flaw. 
It was not until May 1942 when the unpopular Mk. IIF, nicknamed as the "Flying Coffins" by the Polish pilots, were replaced by the much better Mk. VIF, on which Polish crews could face the enemy. 
Of the Polish forces serving with the RAF, only No. 307 squadron employed the Beau from 14th August 1941 to 24th December 1942, when most of the Beaus were replaced by the De Havilland Mosquito NF. Mk. II, except for the Beaufighters Mk. VIF, which served until January 1945. During the period of service, the Polish Beaus scored 15 enemy aircraft, with two additional possible ones, damaged 7 and lost, mainly to accidents in the Mk. II, nine aircraft.

Sources:
1st https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._307_Polish_Night_Fighter_Squadron
2nd https://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/307_wwII.html
3rd https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dywizjon_307 (translated)
4th TBiU 67 - Beaufighter (translated)

Bristol Beaufighter, part ten. Bristol Beaufighter in German, Italian and Portuguese service.

 

The Bristol Beaufighter was also employed, albeit in small numbers by the following countries:

• Germany: There is one photograph suggesting that at least one Bristol Beaufighter Mk. IC was captured by the Germans and put to flight in Luftwaffe markings. However, as the picture we had access does not enjoy the highest quality available, the drawing we made below should be taken with a grain of salt.
  
  
• Italy: On 7th January 1942 a Beaufighter Mk. IC registered as T4887 was on an Overseas Air Despatch Unit flight from Gibraltar to Malta when landed by mistake at Magnisi airfield, close to Augusta and was captured intact by the Italian personnel. This happened because the Italians were jamming the Malta radio-beacon with a jammer truck placed for that purpose at Porto Palo. Both the pilot, Flt. Sgt. Jones and the navigator, Flt. Sgt. Bold were taken prisoners.
  The aircraft was quickly taken to Guidonia, the testing centre of the Regia Aeronautica (the Royal Italian Air Force) and was repainted with Italian markings and colours and even received an Italian registration: MM4887. 
  At Guidonia the Beaufighter spent almost one year, where it was flew tested by many pilots, who praised the excellent avionics and the power of the Bristol Hercules engines. 
  Oddly enough, the Italian engineers did not consider necessary to reverse engineer the British throttle lever action, which was totally abnormal for Italian pilots. 
  After testing was completed, the Beaufighter was assigned to 235ª Squadriglia of Comando Intercettori Leone (235th Flight of Leone Interceptor Command) in mid-December 1942 but it did not last long as it was lost to a take-off accident at Venegono airfield, close to Milan, on 29th January 1943. The most probable cause for the accident was an erroneous throttle control input by the pilot, Tte. Ercole Norace Zedda, who died in the accident, while Flight engineer Sgt. Mg. Motorista Sacchi was severely injured.
  
  
• Portugal: A total of sixteen Beaufighters TF. Mk. Xs were bought by the Forças Aéreas da Armada (literally 'Navy's Air Forces') and were shipped between March and April 1945. 
  All those aircraft were based at Portela de Sacavem airfield, close to Lisbon by Esquadrao 'B' ('B' Squadron) of the Forças Aéreas da Armada. Those Beaus received Portuguese serials ranging from BF.1 to BF.16 and the squadron also operated from Averio airfield under command of Centro de Aviaçao Naval de S. Jacinto (S. Jacinto Naval Aviation Centre).
  On 22nd October 1945 one Beau, BF.4 crashed at Ovar beach, close to S. Jacinto, killing the pilot, 1st Lt. Felix F. Lobo and Sgt. Antunes Nogueira and the wireless operator, Luis Pacheco, dying from the burns he got while trying to rescue his partners from the burning plane. The crash was caused by a broken drive shaft on one of the engine oil pumps, so Bristol sent mechanics to Portugal to repair and modify the remaining airframes to prevent this from happening. 
  A replacement Beaufighter TF. Mk. X (ex RD862) was supplied by Bristol and received the Portuguese registration of BF.17. 
  The Beau was kept in service with Forças Aéreas da Armada until 1950 when Esquadrao 'B' was disbanded and two of the remaining Beaus were assigned to the Instituto Superior Técnico (Technical High School) at Lisbon to serve as instructional airframes, while another airframe was passed to the South African Air Force in exchange for a Spitfire Mk. IX registered as ML255. 
  Those two airframes remained at the Instituto Superior Técnico until 1965 when one of them, BF.10 was sent to Oficinas Gerais de Material Aeronáutico (General Aeronautical Material Workshops) at Alverca, Lisbon, where the national aeronautical museum was founded on 1st July 1969 and BF.10 was restored for display. 
  The other airframe, BF.13 (ex-RD253) was shipped back to the United Kingdom as a gift from the Portuguese government to the Royal Air Force (RAF) and was later restored at RAF St. Athan (Glamorgan, Wales) before being placed on display at the RAF Museum in Hendon on 15th March 1971 where it can be seen nowadays.

Sources:
1st https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufighter
2nd Bancarella Aeronautica - Ali Straniere In Italia 6 - Prede di Guerra
3rd Scale Aircraft Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter

Bristol Beaufighter, part nine. The Beaufighter serving with Nos. 488 & 489 Squadrons.

 

The Bristol Beaufighter also served with the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) during World War 2, albeit the two squadrons that operated the type, Nos. 488 and 489, made it under Royal Air Force (RAF) command. 

• No. 488 Squadron was reformed at Church Fenton, Yorkshire, after having served through the south-east Asian campaign, when Japan invaded. On 25th June 1942 they were reformed as a night fighter 'intruder' squadron and for this purpose, they were re-equipped with the Bristol Beaufighter. In August 1942, they became fully operational and were rebased to Ayr, Scotland. In February 1943 they commenced to perform intruder missions over France. As they operated from Scotland, they had to refuel at Coltishall and then proceed with the raid. They operated the Beaufighter Mk. II and Mk. VI until August 1943 when their role was switched to the night defensive fighter one and subsequently, the Beaufighters were replaced by the De Havilland Mosquito.

• No. 489 Squadron: Unlike No. 488, this unit was formed at Leuchars, England and operated in Europe for the whole duration of the war. 
  Committed to the torpedo-bomber role, this unit began to transition to the Beaufighter TF. Mk.X from the ageing Handley Page Hampden in September 1943, completing the transition in November that same year. This transition meant that, as the Beaufighter had a crew of just two, pilot and navigator, the gunners and the wireless operators required by the Hampden became surplus personnel, so they had to be relocated to other units while the pilots were trained to operate the Beaufighter.
  The unit resumed the anti-shipping patrols in January 1944, targeting German shipping lanes off the Norwegian coast, that were often protected by flak ships. During the squadron's first sortie with the Beaufighter, they managed to sink a merchant ship before they were spotted by a group of German Messerschmitt Bf. 109 fighters. During the return trip they strafed another German merchant ship damaging it. 
  In April 1944 the unit was rebased to south east Anglia, to be part of the Anzac Strike Wing, together with No. 455 Squadron (an Australian unit) and they operated in support for the upcoming Operation Overlord (Normandy landings) by attacking merchant ships  and looking for movements in the shipping lanes off northern France Belgium and the Netherlands.
  For those operations, many of the Beaufighters were equipped with cannons instead of torpedoes, as they were more effective to destroy the anti-air defences of the ships that were being attacked. They also targeted German E and R-boats. 
  On D-Day they were tasked with isolating an area of the English Channel to prevent E and R-boats from attacking the Allied barges from disembarking. This task of patrolling the Channel was extended through the summer of 1944 and was performed with high success rates. It wasn't until October 1944 that the unit returned to their previous anti-shipping assignment, operating from Dallachy, Scotland. 
  From this period until the end of the war in Europe, they patrolled mainly the Norwegian shoreline and fjords. On 9th February 1945 they, together with other Beaufighters of the Anzac Strike Wing (this time reinforced with a British squadron), managed to damaged the German destroyer Z33. That same month, the squadron sunk another German freighter, carrying thousand of tons of mines and during March, another ship was sunk.
  Their last operational sortie in Europe took place after the war, on 21st May 1945. It was a simple patrol by a pair of Beaufighters. 
  In June, with the war in Europe now over, they were moved to Banff, Scotland, to transition to the De Havilland Mosquito, in order to serve in the Pacific Theatre, however, before the transition was completed, Japan collapsed, putting an end to the war and the squadron was disbanded on 1st August 1945.

Sources:
1st https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._488_Squadron_RNZAF
2nd https://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RNZAF/No_488_sqn_RNZAF.html
3rd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._489_Squadron_RNZAF
4th https://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RNZAF/No_489_sqn_RNZAF.html

Bristol Beaufighter, part eight. The Beaufighter in Australian hands. Part two.

 

During the late 1930s, it was obvious that the Allied forces the Far East were vastly inferior to the attacking Japanese, so this fact forced the Allies to set up a supply of British-built aircraft to Australia to assist in the development of the aircraft industry there. 
Starting from July 1939 orders for the licensed production of the Bristol Beaufort were placed at the Department of Aircraft Production (DAP) at Mascot, New South Wales and Fishermen's Bend, Victoria. When Japan waged war on the west, those factories were fully committed to the manufacture process of the Beaufort, so various Beaufighters Mk. I and Mk. VI were taken from production lines in Great Britain and were shipped to Australia. 
At first, fifty-four Fairey-built Beaufighters Mk. ICs (registered from A19-1 to A19-54) were supplied to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the first two of them being A19-7 and A19-8, which were taken on charge on 26th March 1942. Those were followed by additional eighteen machines (A19-55 to A19-72) in October 1942 and sixty-three Mk. VIC more (A19-73 to A19-137). Although this final order was for sixty-four airframes, one machine (A19-105) crashed before delivery. 
Every British-built Beaufighter in RAAF service had the A19 prefix, while the Australian-built machine had the A8 one.

The initial manufacture process in Australia was intended to begin with the Mk. VII, to be powered by the Bristol Hercules 26 radial engine, equipped with a Bendix carburettor. However this had to be discarded as the standardisation on the Hercules Mk. XVII and Mk. XVIII series engines was required. The next two versions of the Beaufighter intended for mass production were the Mk. VIII and the Mk. IX, both intended to be powered by the American Wright Double-Cyclone GR A5B. In fact, one airframe registered as A19-2 was experimentally fitted with those engines, as well as the extended engine nacelles that required from the enlarged diameter cowling needed for the Wright engine. However that variant were not proceeded as it was taken as a safeguard measure against a possible short-supply of the Hercules engine, which never took place as Britain managed to supply them in enough numbers, making an 'Australian-built Mk. VI' a much simpler alternative.
That was the inception of the Mk. 21.
It should also be considered that from 20th April 1942 to 20th August 1945 a total of 218 Beaufighters of various marks were shipped straight to Australia to be employed by the RAAF, however we wrote about those in our previous post.

The DAP Mk. 21 flew for the first time on 21st May 1944, two years later than its intended initial start. It was registered as A8-1. This delay was caused because a total of 55.000 microfilm drawings had to the be sent from the United Kingdom, without which production couldn't start.
The Mk. 21 was powered by the Hercules Mk. XVIII engines that were shipped from Great Britain, but the remaining parts were entirely built in Australia. Manufacture was undertaken by sub-contractors throughout Australia with final assembly being made at DAP's factories at Mascot and Fishermen's Bend. 
The Mk. 21 was armed with four 0.5 in (12,5 mm) Browning machine guns in the wings, instead of the six 0.303 in (7,7 mm) versions of the British-built machines. 
The type could also carry a 250 lb (113 kg) bomb under each outer wing or eight 3 in (75 mm) rockets. The most noticeable difference was the addition of a Sperry autopilot housed in a bulge on top of  the nose, just forward of the cockpit. However, the Sperry was rarely fitted inside the bulge. 
The Mk. 21 was basically an Australian-built Mk. X powered by the Hercules Mk. XVII and the later ones with the Mk. XVIIIs. The later series had supercharged speeds operational, unlike their British counterparts, which were fixed in the M-gear, making their performance marginally better. 
As we have already written, the prototype, A8-1 flew for the first on 21st May 1944 and was delivered to the RAAF on 26th May.

No. 30 Squadron RAAF was the first unit to operate the Mk. 21. It was commanded by Wg. Cdr. Brian Walker. However, as this unit flew mostly British-built Beaufighter, was covered in our previous post. 
No. 31 Squadron also operated the Mk. 21 together with other Beaufighters. It was formed at Wagga Wagga, New South Wales on 14th August 1942 and became fully operational at Coomalie Creek, south of Darwin, performing their first operational sortie against shipping targets in the Timor Sea on 17th November 1942. 
While those two squadrons were operating, further sixty-two Mk. VICs, sixty-two TF. Mk. Xs and twenty Mk. XICs were shipped directly from the United Kingdom. The first squadron to receive the Australian-built Mk. 21 was No. 31 in September 1944 with No. 30 following soon, operating the type until the end of hostilities. 
A third squadron, No. 22 transitioned to the type, replacing their Douglas Bostons at the end of 1944. Two additional RAAF squadrons operated the Beaufighter during World War 2, for two weeks only, Nos. 92 and 93 squadrons, with No. 93 achieving just two operational sorties from Labuan, North Borneo, while assigned to the No.86 (Attack) Wing in the last two weeks of the war.
During the post-war the RAAF modified a number of Beaufighters to target-tug duties. The prototype, A8-265 was followed by additional fifteen similarly converted machines. Those tugs were operated by the Target Towing and Special Duties Flight based at Richmond, New South Wales. This unit was disbanded and their tasks were undertaken by the No. 30 squadron, becoming thus, No. 30 (TT) Squadron. The last operational usage of the Beaufighter in Australia was performed by the Air Trials Flight at the Woomera missile test range, which employed the type until at least 1956.

Initial production estimations expected a total of at least 500 Mk. 21 to be built but, as the war ended, so did manufacture process in September 1945 with 364 airframes completed.

Sources:
1st Scale Aircraft Modellers Datafile 6 - Bristol Beaufighter
2nd Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 153 - Bristol 'Beaufighter' in Action