white stuff

It's anti-flash cream alright, intended to prevent severe burns or scalds from intentional or enemy-inflicted gunpowder flashes or high-pressure steam issuing from a ship's damaged propulsion system. When you see films such as 'Sink The Bismarck' you see the British sailors, certainly always the gun crews, wearing anti-flash gear consisting of a white balaclava-like cowl flowing into a cape that covers the shoulders, and over-the-elbow length white gauntlets. Also, it was standing practice in the Royal Navy for everyone in the crew, upon going into action, to change into clean underwear - the intent being to prevent wounds becoming infected from bacteria built-up in soiled undergarments; in the U.S. Navy standard operating procedure calls for sailors to daily don fresh skivvies. The white color is nowadays used in space suits because it was discovered, following the Mercury space program's silver space suits, that white best protects astronauts from solar radiation and heating in the vacuum of space in which such rays are more powerful than they are at the earth's surface after our planet's atmosphere has refracted, filtered, lessened their power and hazard. Anti-flash cream and gear were white because gunpowder flashes begin with a massive light-and-heat pulse that causes awful damage to the skin, and white cream and cloth coverings reflected much of powder flashes' light-heat pulse and thus actually reduced the severity of burns.