White light is used during the day for all patrol operations, submerged or
surfaced. On US subs the order to "Rig for Red was generally given 1 hour
before sunset.

Red light is used at night during all operations. Once rigged for red, it does
make for excellent dark adaptation, but systems relaying on red indicator
lights can be difficult to use.

Blue light, DOES reverse some of the night adaptation. The benefit it provides is that of simple attenuation and natural coloration so that chart reading is easier and eyestrain is reduced.But you definitely lose some adaptation to unilluminated dark.

Unless your charts were designed to be used under red lighting (a lot weren't
cause they were universal charts.) they could be hard to read, so the blue lighting was used when the charts needed to be read at night.

Christopher