It was the height of World War II and a terrifying new danger threatened the lives of Navy soldiers.

No, I'm not talking about torpedoes or underwater mines.

These sailors were afraid of sharks. And to be fair, they had good reason for that.

In the first three years of the war alone, there had been 20 shark attacks. That number only rose with each new ship

taken down by enemy fire, stranding hundreds of bleeding men in the water. As if the

dangers of battle weren't enough to worry about, right?

Eventually the U.S. military decided something had to be done, and luckily they had just

the person to fix it.

Her name was Julia McWilliams.

She had wanted to join the war effort, but at six foot two she had

been deemed too tall to join the women's emergency corps. So instead she joined the

OSS, a newly formed American spy agency.

Soon her superiors noticed that 29-year-old Julia was no ordinary volunteer.

She had a creative brilliance that they believed would be perfect for solving the shark problem and so

Julia was put on a task force with a very specific mission, invent a shark repellent.

After a year of research and over a hundred tested substances

Julia and her team finally succeeded. The solution it turned out was to create

cakes made of copper acetate and black dye. Apparently it created a smell that, to the sharks at least,

resembled dead shark.

And to the military's relief, the sharks absolutely hated it.

Clearly, Julia McWilliams had a promising career ahead of her and she went on to create

countless more recipes but not for the military. You see Julia McWilliams who when married took on her husband's last name, became none other than Julia Child.

...