[5] The ship's machinery consisted of four Yarrow boilers that fed steam at 250 pounds per square inch (1,700 kPa) to two sets of Parsons single-reduction geared-steam turbines, rated at 40,000 shaft horsepower (30,000 kW).

The force, consisting of four light cruisers and fourteen destroyers and leaders, would tow six Coastal Motor Boats (CMBs) to the edge of the mined areas in the inner German Bight.

Meanwhile, the Harwich Force, waiting for the CMBs to return, encountered the German airship L53, and a Camel took off from a lighter towed behind the destroyer Redoubt and shot down L53.

[16] In January 1927, Bruce returned to active service as the 8th Flotilla was sent to the China Station, to be based at Hong Kong,[16] while operating from Weihaiwei and other northern ports during the summer.

[16][24] In October 1928, Bruce was reported to have rescued the passengers and crew of the coaster Kwangse, which had struck a submerged rock near Amoy.

This visit provoked a diplomatic incident between Japan and Great Britain when three of Bruce's sailors were arrested by Japanese police and accused of failing to pay a taxi fare.

The incident, and the failure of the Japanese to apologise, resulted in the cancellation of a planned visit by Admiral Charles Little, Commander-in-Chief of the China Station, to Japan.

The ship was stripped in preparation for sale by March 1939, but instead, she was assigned as a target, and was torpedoed and sunk during a test of magnetic detonators on 21 November 1939.