The turbines developed a total of 36,000 shaft horsepower (27,000 kW) and gave a maximum speed of 35.5 knots (65.7 km/h; 40.9 mph).

Echo carried a maximum of 470 long tons (480 t) of fuel oil that gave her a range of 6,350 nautical miles (11,760 km; 7,310 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

After the operation was abandoned on 25 September, she escorted the damaged battleship Barham to Freetown, where Echo was retained for local convoy defence, not rejoining the Flotilla until the end of October.

[1] On 21 May 1941, Echo and five other destroyers were deployed as the escort to the battlecruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales on their way to the Denmark Strait, during the search for the German warships Prinz Eugen and Bismarck.

At the end of July she was deployed in the destroyer screen of Force P—the carriers Furious and Victorious and the cruisers Devonshire and Suffolk—during the raid on Kirkenes and Petsamo.

[1] From 8 December, she and Escapade provided the screen for the cruiser Edinburgh escorting the Russian Convoy PQ 6 to Kola Inlet.

On mid-June she began a refit in a Humber shipyard, returning to Scapa Flow on 22 August to join the 8th Destroyer Flotilla.