After many delays, the ship was transferred to France in late 1943 where she escorted Axis blockade runners and submarines through the Bay of Biscay.

After the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, she was one of the few remaining destroyers in French waters and they were ordered to attack the invasion shipping off the beaches.

[3] The ship carried a maximum of 520 tonnes (512 long tons) of fuel oil which gave a range of 2,700 nautical miles (5,000 km; 3,100 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph).

[4] The ship was laid down as Gerard Callenburgh on 12 October 1938 at the Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM) shipyard in Rotterdam and launched a year later.

[1] The Germans, however, refloated the ship on 14 July and towed her to the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg for repair on 11 October, renaming her ZH1,[2] standing for Zerstörer, [destroyer] Holland.

During the voyage to Le Verdon-sur-Mer, both ships were slightly damaged by splinters from British coastal artillery as they passed through the English Channel.

On 5 November they were unsuccessfully attacked by British motor torpedo boats off Cap d'Antifer, damaging several of their assailants.

Zerstörerflotille (8th Destroyer Flotilla), the ship was one of the escorts for the 6,951-gross register ton (GRT) blockade runner MV Osorno through the Bay of Biscay, but salinity problems in her condensers forced her turbines to be shut down on 26 December and she had to be towed to port by the torpedo boat T25.

[7] After word of the Allied landings at Normandy on 6 June was received by Kapitän zur See (Captain) Theodor von Bechtolsheim, commander of the 8.

Zerstörerflottile, ordered his three remaining destroyers, ZH1, Z24, Z32, and the torpedo boat T24, to sail for Brest, France to begin operations against the invasion fleet.

Ashanti was preparing to turn to engage Z32 when ZH1 drifted into the area and fired at Tartar with her rear guns in manual mode.