Butt Report

The Butt Report was a report prepared during World War II which revealed the widespread failure of bombers to deliver their payloads to the correct target.

At the start of the war, RAF Bomber Command had no real means of determining the success of its operations. Crews would return with only their word as to the amount of damage caused or even if they had bombed the correct target. The Air Ministry demanded that a method of verifying these claims was developed and by 1941 cameras mounted under bombers, triggered by the bomb release, were being fitted.

Report contents

The report was initiated by Lord Cherwell, a friend of Churchill and chief scientific advisor to the Cabinet. David Bensusan-Butt, a civil servant in the War Cabinet Secretariat and an assistant of Cherwell, was given the task of assessing 633 target photos and comparing them with crews' claims.Longmante References p.120Hastings, Max Bomber Command Pan (1970)



Postwar studies confirmed Butt's assessment showing that forty-nine percent of RAF Bomber Command's bombs dropped between May 1940 and May 1941 fell in open country.Davis References p.30, citing with footnote 34: Richards, Royal Air......
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