It commemorates the service of the three Royal Air Force Eagle Squadrons from 1940 to 1942, during the Battle of Britain, and in particular their 244 Americans and 16 British fighter pilots, of whom 71 were killed.

At that time, US citizens were prohibited from serving in the armed forces of a foreign power, on pain of losing their citizenship (although those affected were pardoned by Congress in 1944).

Efforts to recruit US citizens to serve in the RAF continued on a more organised basis under the aegis of the Clayton Knight Committee, which recruited around 7,000 US citizens to serve in the RAF or Royal Canadian Air Force by the time the US joined the war in December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The main side, to the north, has a spread eagle from the Great Seal of the United States, holding arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other, and an inscription EAGLE SQUADRONS / THIS MEMORIAL IS TO THE / MEMORY OF THE 244 AMERICAN / AND 16 BRITISH FIGHTER PILOTS / AND OTHER PERSONNEL WHO / SERVED IN THE THREE ROYAL / AIR FORCE EAGLE SQUADRONS / PRIOR TO THE PARTICIPATION OF / THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR / THEY SERVED WITH VALOR / FOUNDED BY CHARLES F SWEENY, JUNE 1940 / ERECTED THROUGH THE GENEROSITY / OF THE / HEARST CORPORATION OF AMERICA / IN THE NAME OF / WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST / PUBLISHER.

The memorial was erected in 1985, near the US Embassy in London (which at that time stood on 24 Grosvenor Square), and close to a statue of the US president Franklin D. Roosevelt.