Several weeks after the start of the Second World War in September 1939, Foxhound helped to sink a German submarine and participated in the Second Battle of Narvik during the Norwegian Campaign of April–June 1940.

She was assigned escort duties in the Western Approaches for several months before the ship was transferred to the English Channel to protect convoys during the Normandy landings.

[3] She 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).

While the ship was under repair in late 1941, her existing director-control tower and rangefinder above the bridge was replaced by a new director with a Type 285 gunnery radar mounted on its roof.

These fed target data to the new Fuze-Keeping Clock, an analogue fire-control system that calculated the gunnery information for the guns.

[7] Foxhound, the seventh ship of that name in the Royal Navy,[8] was laid down by John Brown & Company at their Clydebank shipyard on 15 August 1933.

She patrolled the Spanish ports on the Bay of Biscay in May–June and August–October before returning home for a refit at Chatham Dockyard from 27 October to 30 December.

In the first month of hostilities she was part of an anti-submarine hunting group centred on the aircraft carrier Ark Royal.

A month later the ship escorted Force H during Operation Hurry, a mission to fly off fighter aircraft for Malta and conduct an airstrike on Cagliari on 2 August.

[18] Foxhound then returned to Gibraltar and escorted the aircraft carriers Argus and Ark Royal during Operations Coat and White in November.

[20] On 31 January, Force H, including Foxhound, departed Gibraltar to carry out Operation Picket, an unsuccessful night torpedo attack by eight of Ark Royal's Fairey Swordfish on the Tirso Dam in Sardinia.

The British ships returned to Gibraltar on 4 February and began preparing for Operation Grog, a naval bombardment of Genoa, that was successfully carried out five days later.

[21] On 7 April, Foxhound was escorting Convoy WS 7 off the coast of Sierra Leone, West Africa, when she rescued three seamen.

[22] In mid-May, she participated in Operation Splice, another mission in which the carriers Ark Royal and Furious flew off fighters for Malta.

[23] Force H was ordered to join the escort of Convoy WS 8B in the North Atlantic on 24 May, a day after the Battle of the Denmark Strait, but they were directed to search for the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen on the 25th.

Together with her sisters Faulknor, Fearless, Forester and Foresight, Foxhound helped to sink the German submarine U-138 on 18 June.

In late June, Foxhound screened Ark Royal and Furious as they flew off more fighters for Malta in Operation Railway.

[27] Foxhound screened the light cruisers of Force B and the freighter Glengyle of Convoy MF 2 from Alexandria, Egypt, to Malta in early January 1942.

En route the freighter was sunk by German aircraft and Foxhound arrived back at Alexandria on 20 January.

The ship arrived at Halifax on 29 November to begin a refit at Pictou, Nova Scotia, that lasted from 5 December to 30 June 1945.