sailed on her first war patrol in the Mediterranean. She was soon called upon to join other submarines in carrying U.S. and British Commandos for reconnaissance operations in the area. On 2 December 1942 she torpedoed and damaged the Italian merchant ship Puccini. Later that month, on 23 December she rammed and damaged a U-boat, sustaining sufficient damage herself to necessitate repairs and refit back in Britain. Operation Mincemeat Seraph returned to Blyth, northern England, for a much needed overhaul and leave on 28 January 1943. A few weeks later, Jewell was briefed at the Admiralty on Operation Mincemeat, to be carried out during Seraphs return to the Mediterranean. This mission was part of Operation Barclay, a plan to convince the Germans that the Allies intended to land in Greece and Sardinia, and not Sicily. She set sail again on 19 April, carrying a special passenger. This was a corpse in a metal canister, packed in dry ice, and dressed in a Royal Marines uniform. Attached to the corpse was a briefcase containing faked "secret documents" designed to mislead the Axis. In the early hours of 30 April Seraph surfaced off the coast of Spain, near the port of Huelva. Jewell and his officers launched the body and briefcase in the water, disposing of the canister in deeper waters. Jewell then radioed the signal "MINCEMEAT completed" while the submarine continued to Gibraltar. The body was picked up by the Spanish, who decided it was a courier killed in an aircraft accident. The false documents were passed to the Germans and led them to divert forces from the defence of Sicily. Other missions By late April 1943 Seraph was back in the Mediterranean operating east of Sardinia and on 27 April she fired a salvo of three torpedoes at a merchant ship off the Strait of Bonifacio but was not successful. Again on the last two days of that month she made similar attacks but none of these was successful, and Seraph ended up being depth-charged each time. She was not damaged during these engagements, with no lives lost. In July, during the Allied invasion of Sicily, she acted as a guide ship for the invasion force. For the remainder of 1943 the Seraph operated against German and Italian forces in the Mediterranean theatre and attacked several convoys, but her performance in that area was lacklustre, sinking only a few small