What is the American War Memorial in Gibraltar?
Short answer
The American War Memorial, formally the Naval Monument at Gibraltar, is a stone archway set into the old city wall on Line Wall Road. It was built in the early 1930s for the American Battle Monuments Commission and honours the American and British navies who served together in the waters around Gibraltar in the First World War.
Detailed answer
The memorial was designed by the French-born architect Paul Cret and built in 1932 and 1933 for the American Battle Monuments Commission, the United States agency that looks after American war cemeteries and memorials abroad. It is built of stone from the Rock and set into the Line Wall Curtain, the old sea wall of the town, on the west side of Line Wall Road.
The inscription on the north side of the arch says that it was erected by the United States of America to commemorate the achievements and comradeship of the American and British navies in this vicinity during the world war. Over the arch are two bronze seals, of the United States and of the Navy Department.
The United States entered the First World War in April 1917. From August 1917 until after the Armistice in November 1918, the United States Navy ran a patrol force from Gibraltar, with cruisers, destroyers, Coast Guard cutters and submarine chasers. Its ships attacked German submarines and escorted convoys. In July and August 1918 the force escorted 70 per cent of all convoys from the Gibraltar area to English ports, and 25 per cent of all Mediterranean convoys to French ports.
The monument was formally dedicated on Thursday 7 October 1937. Plaques on the memorial also remember Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, which General Dwight D. Eisenhower directed from Gibraltar; the crew of the USS Chauncey, lost on patrol off the Strait in November 1917; the men of the Coast Guard cutters Tampa and Seneca lost in 1918; and the first United States naval squadron sent to the Mediterranean, whose first port of call was Gibraltar in July 1801.
Steps lead down from the south side of the monument towards the harbour, and they have become known as the American Steps. Today they link Line Wall Road with Reclamation Road and Queensway, and the nearest bus stop is named American Steps. The memorial stands in the open and is accessible at any time.