In January 1942, Britain was losing the Battle of the Atlantic. U-boats were sinking ships faster than they could be replaced, and the Royal Navy’s tactics weren’t working.
Then 19-year-old Janet Okell and a team of teenage girls armed with chalk and stopwatches proved they understood submarine warfare better than admirals with decades at sea.
The Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU) trained 5,000 officers using wargaming simulations on a painted floor.
By May 1943, their tactics forced Admiral Dönitz to withdraw his entire U-boat fleet in defeat.
This is the story of how unlikely heroes solved problems the experts couldn’t crack—and how history almost forgot them completely.
The lesson?
Innovation doesn’t always come from the people you expect.
Sometimes it comes from those willing to question what everyone knows is true.
