Butt Report facts for kids
The Butt Report was an important paper released on August 18, 1941. It was written during World War II. The report showed that many planes from the RAF Bomber Command were missing their targets. They often failed to hit what they were aiming for.
At the start of the war, the Bomber Command didn't have a good way to know if their bombing missions were successful. Pilots would come back and just tell what they thought happened. The Air Ministry wanted a way to check these claims. By 1941, cameras were put on bombers. These cameras would take a picture when bombs were dropped.
What the Report Found
The idea for the report came from Lord Cherwell. He was a friend of Winston Churchill and a top science advisor. David Bensusan-Butt, a government worker, was asked to help. His job was to look at 633 bombing photos. He compared them with what the plane crews said they hit.
The results, shared on August 18, 1941, were a big surprise to many. However, people in the RAF already knew it was hard to fly at night. It was also very difficult to find targets in the dark.
Here's what the report found:
Any look at night photos from bombing in June and July shows this:
- Of planes that said they hit their target, only one out of three got within 5 mi (8.0 km).
- Over French ports, two out of three planes got close. Over Germany, only one out of four did. Over the Ruhr area, it was only one out of ten.
- When the moon was full, two out of five planes got close. When there was a new moon, only one out of fifteen did. ...
- These numbers are only for planes that said they attacked the target. The number of all flights that got within 5 miles was less than one-third. ...
This means that only about one-third of planes that claimed to hit their target actually did.
Later studies after the war agreed with Butt's findings. They showed that almost half (49%) of the bombs dropped by Bomber Command between May 1940 and May 1941 landed in empty fields. Butt's report didn't include planes that didn't bomb. This could be because of broken equipment, enemy attacks, bad weather, or not finding the target. So, only about 5% of all bombers that took off actually bombed within 5 mi (8.0 km) of their target.
Debates and New Ideas
The truth about Bomber Command's failures shocked many people. Some senior RAF leaders argued that the report's numbers were wrong. They asked for another report. This new report came out on September 22, 1941. It looked at damage done to British cities by enemy bombs. It then guessed that the RAF could destroy 43 German towns. These were towns with more than 100,000 people. They said it would take 4,000 bombers to do this.
The head of the Air Force, Sir Charles Portal, said that with such a force, Bomber Command could win the war in six months. Not everyone believed this. When Churchill had doubts, the Air Force leaders changed their minds a bit. They said that even if it didn't knock Germany out of the war, it would weaken them. This would allow British forces to get back into Europe. With this agreement, Bomber Command kept its planned supplies and equipment.
But people outside the top military leaders still questioned the bombing plan. Professor A. V. Hill, a scientist and a Member of Parliament, gave a strong speech. He had helped with early radar research. He pointed out that:
The total British deaths from air-raids since the war began are only two-thirds of those we lost as prisoners at Singapore.... The loss of production in the worst month of the Blitz was about the same as during the Easter holidays.... The Air Ministry has been ... too hopeful.... We know most of the bombs we drop hit nothing important. ...
To deal with the worries from the Butt report, Cherwell wrote his "dehousing paper." This paper was shared on March 30, 1942. It suggested that instead of trying to hit small targets precisely, they should bomb large areas. This would help make up for the RAF's problems. The Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, and Sir Charles Portal were very happy with this paper. It supported their fight to keep the strategic bombing plan going. Others in the military thought that too many resources were going to Bomber Command. They felt it wasn't achieving much.
When Professor Patrick Blackett, a top scientist for the Royal Navy, read the dehousing paper, he said its goals were way too high. He thought they were 600 percent too optimistic. Sir Henry Tizard was a main person who wanted to reduce Bomber Command. He thought the only good thing about strategic bombing was that it made the enemy use resources to defend Germany. But he believed a much smaller bombing effort could do the same. He wrote to Cherwell on April 15. He questioned the numbers in the paper. He warned that the government could make the wrong choice based on it. He argued that only 7,000 bombers would be ready, not the 10,000 mentioned in the paper. Also, only 25 percent of bombs would likely hit the target. So, the plan wouldn't work with the available resources.
Mr. Justice Singleton, a High Court Judge, was asked by the government to look at both sides of the argument. In his report on May 20, 1942, he concluded:
If Russia can hold Germany on land, I doubt if Germany will last 12 or 18 months of continuous, stronger, and increased bombing. This bombing must affect its war production, its ability to fight, its factories, and its will to fight (meaning morale).
In the end, this view won out, partly thanks to the dehousing paper. C. P. Snow (later Lord Snow) wrote that the debate became very angry. Tizard was even called a defeatist. While this debate about bombing was happening, the area bombing directive was issued on February 14, 1942. Eight days later, Arthur "Bomber" Harris became the main commander of Bomber Command.
Later Improvements
As the war went on, RAF Bomber Command got better at its methods. New electronic navigation tools were developed. These included GEE, Oboe, G-H, and a radar called H2S that could map the ground. All these tools helped improve bombing accuracy.
Tactics also got better. For example, the Pathfinder Force was created. This was done even though Harris didn't want it. The Pathfinders were special planes that went ahead to mark targets for the main bombers. This also made bombing more accurate. By 1945, a group called No. 5 Group RAF could bomb in a fan shape. This spread out incendiary bombs (fire bombs) to cover a wider area. To do this, the bomber's flight path was carefully timed and calculated. It would fan out from a specific aiming point. This was done during the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. The aiming point there was the Ostragehege soccer stadium, which was easy to spot with H2S radar.
