Early on in World War II, the leaders of the Allied forces understood that the war effort would hinge on submarine warfare. Though the D-Day invasion wouldn't take place until June 6, 1944, biomedical engineer Rachel Lance says British scientists at University College London were studying issues of submarine survival as early as 1940.
"[They] ... were looking at these problems of undersea survival, of how people breathe inside enclosed spaces," Lance says. "Eventually, that transitioned into diving and diving technologies, and all of those things together were used to scout the beaches of Normandy and facilitate the landings of D-Day."
