It was dedicated on November 2, 1963.
The Seraph Monument is a memorial consisting of relics from H.M.S. Seraph, including the periscope and a forward torpedo loading hatch. Both the U.S. and British flags fly from the structure to symbolize that this British Royal Navy submarine was placed under the command of an American Naval officer for a special mission during World War II. It is the only shore installation in the U.S. permitted to fly the Royal Navy Ensign.
Seraph became known as "the special missions submarine" because of its involvement in the most famous seaborne covert missions in the European Theater of World War II. It was the vessel that took then Major General Mark Clark and several others to Algeria in October of 1942 on a successful secret mission to win support of the Vichy French forces prior to the Allied landings in North Africa. Days later Seraph was dispatched to southern France to rescue General Henri Giraud, a Vichy officer who wished to cooperate with the allies; because he would only deal with the Americans, Seraph's British markings were painted over, she flew a U.S. flag and temporarily became the U.S.S. Seraph under the command of a U.S. Navy Captain. Seraph later acted as a beacon ship for General George Patton's forces in the invasion of Sicily as well as for the D-Day landings in Normandy; she also transported several commando units on clandestine missions in southern Europe. Late in the war she was converted to a high speed anti-submarine warfare training platform and remained in service with the Royal Navy until 1962.
The HMS Seraph played a major role in Operation Mincemeat, one of the most successful deception operations ever mounted in warfare. The elaborate ruse involving the planting of fake documents on a body set adrift off Spain convinced Hitler's High Command that the next allied landings would be at Sardinia when the real target was Sicily. Operation Mincemeat is the subject of several books and a movie titled The Man who Never Was.
This monument is dedicated to Anglo-American cooperation during WWII.
