HMS Caprice was a C-class destroyer of the Royal Navy, ordered on 16 February 1942 from Yarrow, Scotstoun.

On commissioning Caprice was allocated to the 6th Destroyer Flotilla with the Home Fleet and took part in Russian and Atlantic convoys and acted as escort to the ocean liners, Queen Elizabeth and Île de France on their high speed trooping runs.

Work included a new enclosed bridge and Mark 6M gunnery fire control system, as well as the addition of two triple Squid anti-submarine mortars.

[3][4] On 1 January 1961, she was on passage from Hong Kong to Singapore when she responded to a distress signal from the Panamanian freighter SS Galatea, which had run aground on Pearson Reef in the Spratly Islands.

She visited Gibraltar, Freetown and Simonstown on the outwatrd leg and then spent a month on duty on the Beira Patrol.

For the next five months she alternated between Singapore and Hong Kong, carrying out guard duties and exercising with other ships of the Australian, New Zealand and United States navies.