How Julia Child Helped the Navy Develop a Shark Repellent During World War II

Long before she became a culinary powerhouse, Julia Child was fighting sharks -- sort of.

While Child was not one of the driving forces behind the U.S. Navy's quest to develop a shark repellent during World War II, she was among those tasked with finding one while working for the Office of Strategic Services, the intelligence agency established in June 1942 that became a precursor to the CIA.

In the book "Sisterhood of Spies: the Women of the OSS," Child recalled her role in pursuing a repellent fondly.

"We had lots of fun," Child told author Elizabeth P. McIntosh, who also worked with the OSS. "We designed rescue kits and other agent paraphernalia. I understand the shark repellent we developed is being used today for downed space equipment -- strapped around it so the sharks won't attack when it lands in the ocean."

Born Aug. 15, 1912, in California, Child was in her late 20s when Japan carried out the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II. After being fired from a secretarial position in the late 1930s for insubordination, the future celebrity chef had no discernible job prospects at the time, so she sought adventure instead. The 6-foot-2 Child attempted to enlist in Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, but was rejected because of her height. She then turned to the Office of Strategic Services, which hired her in December 1942.

Child started as a junior research assistant, tediously typing thousands of names and addresses onto note cards. Seeking more challenging assignments, she moved on to work under OSS director William "Wild Bill" Donovan, a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions during World War I, before being transferred to the Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section (ERE) special projects division. Established in April 1943 under the auspices of the Navy, one of the division's objectives was to develop a shark repellent, a pursuit that predated the ERE by nearly a year.

During the war, sharks posed a dilemma for the military because they were mistaking underwater explosives for food, damaging valuable munitions and interfering with their intended purpose of destroying German U-boats. And while the odds of sharks attacking humans are infinitesimally small, media coverage of the ones that occurred also deflated the morale of service members, especially those who might be assigned to missions in, on or over shark-infested waters.

When a shark ripped off a service member's limb after his plane went down in 1941, the startling incident concerned anthropologist Henry Field, an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, enough that he convinced FDR of the supposedly urgent need to create a shark repellent. Staffers and researchers, including Child, went to work, experimenting with myriad compounds on a small shark called a dogfish. Some sharks died as they were subjected to chlorine gas, sodium cyanide, narcotics, chemical warfare gases, acids and alkalis, et al., but none proved to be an effective repellent.

The most promising deterrent was decayed shark meat, and researchers settled on a mix that could mimic its smell -- copper acetate and black dye (to blur the shark's vision of its target, if only briefly). The concoction was called "Shark Chaser" and dispensed to service members craving any source of comfort that would allay their fears.

Some skeptics of the repellent remained, however, arguing the repellent was tested on sharks weighing less than 10 pounds and wouldn't be effective against much larger types of the species. Along those lines, they pointed out it would not be feasible for any service member to carry enough doses of Shark Chaser to be truly effective against bigger fish.

Capt. Harold Coolidge, one of the special projects division's leaders and Child's direct supervisor for a while, warned that "none of us expected that the chemical would really function when the animals were stirred up in a mob behavior pattern." Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics Edward Howell chimed in, too, asserting it was illogical to expect the repellent "[to] give any promise of affecting the voracious behavior of the few species known to have attacked man."

Shark Chaser, it turned out, was basically a placebo.

"The main goal of the shark repellent was really what they called a 'pink pill,'" Mary Roach, author of "Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War," told Business Insider. "It was just to make them feel better."

Despite issues regarding its efficacy, Shark Chaser enjoyed a long run in the Navy, with the service continuing to issue it until the mid-1970s, per the American Chemical Society. After her time with the Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section, Child went on to work for the OSS in present-day Sri Lanka -- where she met her husband, a fellow officer who would introduce her to the joys of French cuisine -- India and China.

After the war, the former Julia McWilliams married Paul Child in 1946 and moved to Paris while he worked for the State Department. With her husband as her biggest advocate, Child reinvented herself, becoming a sensation with the release of the first of two volumes of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 1961. She followed up by hosting "The French Chef" for 10 seasons, beginning in 1963.

"The only real stumbling block is fear of failure," said Child, who died in 2004 at the age of 91. "In cooking, you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude."

Just like in the kitchen, Child was willing to try anything during her time with the OSS. She never regretted it.

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