Based first at Hvalfjord, Iceland, it was there that she tended to the captured German submarine U-570 before the vessel was towed to the United Kingdom, where she was renamed HMS Graph and entered service with the Royal Navy.

Reassigned, Hecla left Iceland bound for the Far East, but her journey was interrupted by an encounter with a German mine.

On 15 May 1942 she struck, amidships, one of 80 mines laid a month prior by the auxiliary minelayer Doggerbank, killing 24 and wounding another 112 men.

With her steering gear out of commission, the cruiser HMS Gambia towed Hecla to Simonstown, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa for repairs.

The submarine followed its first four shots with three additional torpedoes, sinking the ship approximately 180 mi (290 km) west of Gibraltar.