About this event
It’s 1942. Britain stands alone in Europe. German U-boats have a strangle-hold on the Atlantic, sinking so much British shipping that if nothing changes we will be starved out of the war in less than three months. The Western Approaches Tactical Unit, staffed by women from across the Empire and men unfit for duty at sea due to illness and injury, is tasked to find out what’s happening in the Atlantic and find ways of sinking the U-boats. This is the story of the game behind some of the most consequential wargaming in history and recent recreations of their work.
Bio:
Sally Davis is a senior analyst at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, part of the UK Ministry of Defence, where she writes software in support of analysis, simulation, and wargaming. She is an editor at PAXsims, co-author of the Derby House Principles for diversity and inclusion in professional wargaming, and researcher-in-chief of all things WATU-related. She ran the 2018 recreation of the WATU game at Western Approaches HQ, has spoken with genuine there-at-the-time WATU wargamers, and is helping Western Approaches HQ with their up-coming podcast series Women at War and the Canadian War Museum’s exhibition on wargaming.