During the World War 2, Commander John Cunningham was a popular name.
He was the leader of a night fighter regiment.
His regiment holds the record for shooting down a maximum number of aircraft’s, compared to other night fighters.
The reason behind this super performance was John Cunningham’s incredible eyesight.
He had a habit of eating lots of carrots.
Carrots have lots of Vitamin A, that improves the eyesight, and also helps the eyes to recover quickly after subjected to a heavy flash of bright light.
It became big news because people in those days were not aware of Vitamins.
John Cunningham became a hero.
To preserve the super sensitivity of his night vision, he used to wear dark sunglasses in the day.
He only took out the glasses in the night, to spot the enemy aircraft.
But was it true?
Can only eating carrots would be sufficient to spot fighter airplanes in the night?
No.
It was a military propaganda.
Behind the propaganda of Cunningham’s ‘Cat Eyes’, there was a secret that Royal Air Force wanted to hide.
RAF had invented a two-purpose radar system.
One of its functions was to guide ground-based night fighters to bomber formations.
And the other was to guide the aircraft pilot to an individual bomber.
This radar system was first made available to Cunningham’s squadron.
RAF kept this radar system as a secret and gave the credit to Cunningham’s eyes.
If the enemy found out the newly invented radar system, then they will come up with a counter strategy and equipment.
Germany felt into this propaganda, and held Cunningham’s powerful eyesight responsible, for losing so many of their superb bombers.
After a long time, they discovered this secret, but it was too late for them.
For most people, something that captures the imagination is more powerful than something that just captures reason.
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on” ~ Winston Churchill.
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