By March 1940, 264 Squadron had two flights operational with Defiants and No. 141 Squadron received its first Defiant. When the Defiant was first introduced to the public, the RAF put out a disinformation campaign, stating that the Defiant had 21 guns: four in the turret, 14 in the wings and three cannon in the nose. On 12 May 1940, the first operational sortie occurred as a flight of six Defiants flew with six Spitfires of 66 Squadron over the English Channel to the coastline in the vicinity of The Hague, Netherlands; during this flight, a single Ju 88, which had been in the process of attacking a destroyer, was shot down. The following day, in a patrol that was a repetition of the first, Defiants claimed four Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers, but were subsequently attacked by a flight of Bf 109Es. The escorting Spitfires were unable to prevent five of the six Defiants from being shot down by a frontal attack.