Noel Stephen Paynter

Who was Noel Stephen Paynter?

Air Commodore Noel Stephen "Peter" Paynter, CB, former chief intelligence officer of Bomber Command,. Paynter was a senior member of the team which ran RAF Bomber Command under its formidable C-in-C, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, throughout the last three years of the Second World War. His reports, as head of intelligence, lay behind many of the raids on German cities, which remain the subject of controversy. Paynter insisted to the end that reliable sources had led them to believe that the Nazis had hidden large munitions stores in such historic towns as Dresden; Hitler thought that the Allies would not attack them.