RAF Coastal Command: unsung heroes of WW2
History Extra podcast
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The Transformation of the RAF
When the service began operating at the start of the war it didn't have any operational research section. Patrick Blackett was a brilliant physicist and scientist who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics. He noticed that coastal command planes were either painted with khaki camouflage or black. So he said we should paint them white so they are far harder to pick up again in the sky. Also worked out the absolute optimum height to drop a depth charge which caused the most damage to a German submarine. The introduction of de Vere lei light, named after its inventor Humphrey de Vere Lei made Germans much more fearful of Coastal Command attacks.
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