HMS Seraph was the British submarine that landed General Mark Clark and four other spies in North Africa in 1942. Its purpose was to make rendezvous with French leaders. The Allies did not want to fight the French when they landed on the North African coast.
The Seraph was launched on October 25, 1941 and commissioned in 1942. It fired its first torpedo on July 24, 1942 at a whale which it thought was an enemy submarine. This action took place off the coast of Norway.
It also was the subject of a book, The Man Who Never Was, that dealt with the Seraph's other covert action of the war. It fired a corpse from one of its torpedo tubes with false information regarding the D-Day invasion. This deception was credited with saving many thousands of Allied lives. HMS Seraph also played a role in rescuing French General Henri H. Giraud from the threat of capture by Germans. This episode is recounted in Terence Robertson's The Ship With Two Captains (D 722 .S4 R6 1957a). (Sources: "Parts of Sub Being Brought to The Citadel," News and Courier, March 25, 1963, p. 1B; DeWitt Nicholson, "The Incredible Career of the HMS Seraph," News and Courier, October 20, 1963, pp. 1-C, 6-C; General Mark W. Clark, Calculated Risk. D766.82 .C5 1950; Ewen Montagu, The Man Who Never Was. D810 .S8 M6 1954)
