The city was home to the Western Approaches Command, which co-ordinated the effort to protect merchant shipping from the German navy in World War II.

BBC: Liverpool Battle of Atlantic anniversary events planned

In 1916 Chaim Weizmann, who later became Israel's first president, worked out how to use chestnuts to solve the lack of acetone, a component of the cordite needed by the British navy to repel German U-boat attacks in the first world war.

ECONOMIST: The Atlantic Ocean

In the second world war Mr Spilhaus had been called in when the American navy was puzzled, and indeed desperate, because German submarines were eluding its warships after apparently being detected by sonar.

ECONOMIST: Athelstan Spilhaus