The Whitley was the only RAF aircraft at the outbreak of WWII that was designed as a night bomber, and it had a front turret. As pointed out, the front turret could be used to douse enemy searchlights and I know at least one Whitley pilot who used his front gun to strafe German road convoys at night on two occasions in 1939/40.
They were also used to strafe submarines in the U-boat war, whilst preparing to depth charge, and more than one would have been used to fend off Ju88s over the Bay of Biscay. The Vickers ‘K’ gun would not have been very effective, however, it was better than nothing!
The heavy bomber fleet was designed to meet Air Ministry criteria that before the War posited that the “bomber would always get through” so what it needed was defensive armament for daylight operations. As the early bomber crews in Whitleys, Wellingtons soon discovered was that they simply did not have the defensive capability required to fend off day fighters, hence the switch to night bombing. That rendered the front turret practically useless, except for some flak and searchlight supressant. The Lancaster was based on the Manchester and that was designed to have a ventral turret, in a similar position to where the H2S dome was fitted.
It might have been a better modification to have changed the nose configuration to have a ventral chin turret to fire below and behind to counter the schrage musik attack position. That would have kept the CoG similar and have saved many more crews.
Trying to hit a target when you are squinting into a 300 mph headwind with rain or snow in pitch darkness and at a closing speed of over 500 mph would have been luck rather than skill.
To sit in front of a freezing 300 mph gale for up to 10 hours? Heroes all, the size of cojones required would have restored the CoG!!
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