Royal Air Force Bomber Command, the ’Overlord Air Diversion,’ and ’Precision’ Bombing at Night

The official historians of the British strategic air offensive described RAF Bomber Command’s development in the spring and summer of 1944 as an operational “revolution.” The present article explores aspects of that development in closer and critical detail, highlighting the organizational change employed to make operational experiments into standard operating procedure, the role of airborne control at the target (the master bomber), and related challenges in signals communication. It also examines closely some of the bombing data compiled and analyzed by the command’s Operational Research Section. The article concludes that the “revolution” produced change sufficient to make the command a more effective bomber force, but a variety of factors limited further progress in the operational environment of 1944–45.