History and Historiography of Science

Document: The Butt Report (1941)

Will Thomas

My book manuscript, Rational Action: The Sciences of Policy in Britain and America, 1940-1960 is now under contract with the MIT Press.  I will be revising and formatting the manuscript through mid-February, so expect to continue hearing little from me until then. I do, however, want to start trying some new experiments with this blog, one of which is to make certain unpublished government documents more widely available.

Today’s document is the so-called “Butt Report” found at The National Archives of the UK, Public Record Office, AIR 14/1218.  Issued in August 1941, the report detailed, on the basis of photographic evidence, the extreme inability of RAF bomber crews to locate, let alone strike, targets in the dark. This investigation was ordered by Winston Churchill’s friend and adviser, Oxford physicist Frederick Lindemann, and was undertaken by his assistant, David Bensusan-Butt.  The Butt Report is well known, having played a role in shaping subsequent debate over the aims of British bombing policy in view of technical limitations.  However, I do not believe it has previously been made available in full (or nearly in full, as the last page appears to be missing).

The rules of the National Archives of the UK state that facsimile copies of its records may not be distributed without permission and the payment of a large fee. Transcriptions, however, may be distributed freely. Upon learning this, shortly after publishing this post, I quickly removed the photographic reproduction I had originally made available here. However, in December 2014 I found time to transcribe the report, adhering as closely as possible to the format of the original. Here it is:

Butt Report transcription (TNA PRO AIR 14 1218)

15 thoughts on Document: The Butt Report (1941)

  1. Fascinating. This reminds one of the effort that went into merely documenting the problem – a hard thing for most of our computer-based generations to appreciate. I’m old enough to remember typing, but soon that will be a faint memory. Just another reason for the importance of looking at the original documents, and perhaps a reason to NOT reprocess the photographs!

    1. Thanks Lee – one thing I find useful about going to the original document is that it gives you a better sense of just what kind of a heuristic (if you will) apparatus was available at the time. A lot of secondary reports will tell you what this or that report concluded, without telling you much about how it got there. In this case, you can tell that that apparatus was not yet very sophisticated, although they did at least have a photo interpretation crew working. What’s most interesting to me here, is how modestly Butt assesses his own skills, as well as his recommendations for a more permanent statistical operation. (It so happened that Bomber Command was just setting up an operations research section when the Butt report was issued.)

  2. Thanks Will ! I am doing my dissertation on effects of the Anglo-American Bombing campaign & could not find the Butt report anywhere else online. Deciding a war strategy based on data from only 28 targets seems incredible… Many Thanks. Dave.

    1. Glad it is of help, Dave. At that point in the war, most of the arguments for and against area bombing were apparently based, at most, on back-of-the-envelope calculations. The Butt Report was considered unusually systematic. Somebody should write on the development of the planning and analysis apparatuses of the various air forces over the course of the war.

    2. David. Hi my name is Anton and I am developing my thesis about targeting in WWII.. any chance to contact you? thanks.

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  4. As noted in other comments this is a fascinating document that shows the methodology as well as the conclusion – the way we were all taught at school!

    Is there not a typo in the original report or perhaps your transcription with the date of the period being analysised being 2 June to 25 July?

    Although both the Summary (immediately after the covering letter) and the Statistical Analysis both refer to June and July, your para 1 under ‘A Statistical Analysis’ refers to ‘650 photographs taken during night bombing operations between 2 JULY and 25 July. (My capitals for emphasis);

    The same para goes on: ‘They relate to 28 targets, 48 nights, and 100 separate raids.’

    Although there are more that 48 nights between 2 June and 25 July this would fit better as the no attacks may have been recorded on the other days because of weather conditions.

    1. You have an excellent eye! The error is in the transcription. It should read “2nd June”. I will replace the file with a corrected version.

      1. Thank you Will for your speedy reply and clarification – goes to bear out the comment on the covering letter about the report being badly typed! While on the subject of the annotations Peter Hinchliffe attributes the ‘I don’t think at this rate…’ remark to Air Chief Marshall Sir Richard Peirse, Commander in Chief Bomber Command. He was removed from the post in January 1942 and replaced by Air Chief Marshall Harris the following month.

  5. The missing page of the Butt Report.

    Having read your transcribed Butt Report and already sung my praises for both your hard work and also choosing such a fascinating and import document to bring to a wider audience, I was left at the cliff-hanger point of the missing page.

    I went to the UK National Archives at Kew to see if I could locate another copy but to no avail.

    I did however manage to find a copy of the official government publication ‘History of the Second World War: The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939-1945’ by Sir Charles Webster K.C.M.G., F.B.A., D. Litt and Noble Frankland D.F.C., M.A., D. Phil.

    Volume IV of the series is the final one and gives a number of annexes and appendices relating to the narrative detailed in the other volumes.

    Annex 13 reproduces the finished report – albeit without the corrections and annotations that the copy at Kew has – and I have taken the liberty to transcribe the missing part below.

    Volume I to IV of the series has been reprinted by the Naval and Military Press, a specialist publisher in the UK ( http://www.naval-military-press.com ) with Volume IV also available as a stand alone.
    I am of course happy for you to add the text I have found to your document if you think it is appropriate (not withstanding any copyright issues as UK copyright is a minefield!)

    Alternatively please feel free to edit this post to reflect that the missing material is available in the official history.

    The missing text reads:

    … bother about reporting weather conditions in detail, but instead to report on the features which caused the crews to consider that they had recognised the target area, or to report, say, especially on the number of searchlights seen in particular areas. He could then make a reliable study of these particular points without adding to the number of questions put to the crews.

    It is emphatically not suggested that to obtain good statistical material crews should be subjected to still further volleys of questions. It is not necessary to know the answers to every possible question in all possible cases. It is only necessary to have reliable answers in a selection of the cases, and for this selection to be made and the answers analysed by an expert statistician.

    Doubtless a statistical branch such as is proposed could also assist in making ad hoc investigations of any of the other quantitative points that must turn up at frequent intervals in the work of the Command.

    1. Excellent work — thanks! I’m glad to have the final page of the text. (I was also worried that I had simply neglected to photograph it.)

      It’s worth noting in view of Butt’s remarks about a proposed statistical branch that it was very shortly after the report was issued that Bomber Command got its own Operational Research Section, but, as I suggest in my book, that development appears to have a separate origin. Randall Wakelam has written the definitive history of that group.

  6. He has indeed and a very interesting and accessible read it is. Also worth looking at is The Laurier Military Archive page ( http://lmharchive.ca/the-ronnie-shephard-fonds/operational-research-in-bomber-command/ ) which gives enables one to access Dr. Basil Dickins history of RAF Bomber Command’s Operational Research section through the papers of Ronnie Shephard Fonds.

    The site allows you to download the full 622 page manuscript with corrections or as 21 individually themed chapters and five separate appendices.

    1. !!! I was unaware of that — thank you once again. Promptly downloaded.

    2. I’ve now updated the pdf file to include the final page as you have reported it. Thanks once again for your help. If you ever care to drop me a line about this or any other subject, my email is listed under the About tab.

  7. You’ve done a great service by transcribing this. I’m teaching a module on airpower to my online students and I’m hyperlinking it to this posting (not directly to the transcript). Hopefully my students will follow the link…

    Anyway well done and thank you!

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