Blanche was sunk by a mine in November 1939, becoming the first British destroyer lost to enemy action in World War II.

Blanche carried a maximum of 390 long tons (400 t) of fuel oil that gave her a range of 4,800 nautical miles (8,900 km; 5,500 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

[7] On 6 April 1937, the Spanish Nationalist cruiser Almirante Cervera, which was taking part in a blockade of the Republican-held north of Spain, stopped the British merchant ship Thorpehall, carrying a cargo of food, outside Bilbao.

During the Munich Crisis, Blanche was one of the destroyers that escorted the ocean liner RMS Aquitania and the battleship HMS Revenge in the English Channel on 30 September.

[11] Blanche was assigned to the 19th Destroyer Flotilla when World War II began and spent the next two months escorting convoys and patrolling in the Channel and North Sea.

The ship and her sister Basilisk were escorting the minelayer Adventure on the morning of 13 November in the Thames Estuary when they entered a minefield laid the night before by several German destroyers.