The turbines were designed to produce 32,000 shaft horsepower (24,000 kW) which was intended give the ships a maximum speed of 33.5 knots (62.0 km/h; 38.6 mph).

T23, her sister T22, and the torpedo boats Falke and Kondor escorted the Italian blockade runner SS Cortellazzo from Bordeaux through the Bay of Biscay on 29–30 November.

Another Italian blockade runner, Himalaya, failed in her attempt to break through the Bay of Biscay on 30 March 1943 when she turned back after being spotted by British reconnaissance aircraft, despite a heavy escort of T23, Falke, and the torpedo boats T2, T12, and T18.

Himalaya made another attempt on 9–11 April, escorted by T23, T2, T22, Kondor and the torpedo boat T5, but was forced to return by heavy aerial attacks.

While providing distant cover for a small convoy during the night of 3/4 October, the 4th Flotilla spotted a force of five British destroyers off the Sept-Îles near the coast of Brittany in the Channel and attacked with complete surprise.

The British were aware of Münsterland and attempted to intercept her on the night of the 23rd with a scratch force that consisted of the light cruiser Charybdis and the destroyers Grenville, Rocket, Limbourne, Wensleydale, Talybont and Stevenstone.

T22's hydrophones detected the British ships off the Sept-Îles at 00:25 and Korvettenkapitän Franz Kohlauf maneuvered his flotilla to intercept them before they could reach Münsterland.

At 01:36 Charybdis's radar detected the German torpedo boats at a range of 8,100 yards (7,400 m) and she fired star shells in an unsuccessful attempt to spot them visually.

The Allies were aware of these blockade runners through their Ultra code-breaking efforts and positioned cruisers and aircraft in the Western Atlantic to intercept them in Operation Stonewall.

They had been spotted by an American Liberator bomber on the morning of the 28th and the British light cruisers Glasgow and Enterprise, which were assigned to Stonewall, maneuvered to intercept them.

[10] By this time, the weather had gotten significantly worse and the German ships were steaming for home, hampered by the rough seas that threw spray over their forward guns which made them difficult to operate.

Kapitän zur See Hans Erdmenger, commander of the 8th Flotilla, decided to split his forces and ordered the destroyers Z23, Z27, and T22, T25 and T26 to reverse course to the north at 14:18.

She was attached to the 6th Torpedo Boat Flotilla to help them lay a minefield in Narva Bay, off the Estonian coast, on the night of 17/18 August.

Four minutes later, look-outs reported a motor torpedo boat moving fast aft of the ship and the hydrophones picked up engine noises.

Korvettenleutnant Weinlig, thinking that the explosions that sank T22 were torpedoes rather than mines, decided that T23 needed to withdraw lest she be sunk as well, despite the presence of survivors in the water and the crippled T32.

[Note 3] He radioed for shallow-draft boats to rescue the survivors at 01:20 and headed west with multiple reports of other ships nearby for the next several hours.

The Soviets never claimed to have sunk any of the torpedo boats that night and the 01:18 spot report was undoubtedly a pinnace from T30 that was pulling survivors from the water.

[13] On 20–21 August, T23 and her sister T28 helped to escort the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as she supported a German counterattack near Tukums, Latvia.

[14] Prinz Eugen, two destroyers, T23 and T28 supported a German counterattack against advancing Soviet forces near Cranz, East Prussia, on 29–30 January 1945.