The ship participated in the Battle of Calabria in July 1940 and was assigned to convoy escort and patrol duties until she was sunk by German bombers off Tobruk on 24 February 1941.

Dainty carried a maximum of 473 long tons (481 t) of fuel oil that gave her a range of 5,870 nautical miles (10,870 km; 6,760 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

[3] Dainty was ordered on 2 February 1931 under the 1930 Naval Estimates and was laid down at the yards of the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan, Scotstoun on 20 April 1931.

On 21 January 1937, the merchant ship SS Hsin Pekin grounded on the Nemesis Rock off Ningbo and Dainty posted a guard aboard her until she was refloated.

On its completion she was transferred to the 2nd Destroyer Division, based in Freetown, Sierra Leone to search for German commerce raiders operating in the South Atlantic.

[10] Dainty participated in the Battle of Calabria on 9 July as an escort for the heavy ships of Force C and unsuccessfully engaged Italian destroyers and suffered no damage.

Together with her sisters Defender and Diamond, the Australian destroyer Stuart, and the light cruisers Capetown and Liverpool, she escorted Convoy AN.2 from Egypt to various ports in the Aegean Sea in late July.

[11] Together with three Australian destroyers and two British anti-aircraft cruisers, the ship escorted a convoy from Egypt to Suda Bay, Crete and then to Malta in early November.

[7] The ships were attacked by 13 Junkers Ju 88 bombers of III./Lehrgeschwader 1 and Dainty was hit by a 1,000 lb (450 kg) bomb which passed through the captain's cabin and detonated in the fuel tanks.