She was named after the Battle of La Hogue, fought between the British and French in 1692; the ship's badge a chess rook on a field blue, within a chaplet of laurel gold was derived from the arms of Admiral Sir George Rooke who distinguished himself at the battle.

The Battle-class was developed as a result of operational experience in the early years of the Second World War, which had shown that the Royal Navy's existing destroyers had inadequate anti-aircraft protection, and in particular, lacked a modern dual-purpose main gun armament, capable of dealing with both surface targets and air attack, with guns lacking the high elevation mountings necessary to deal with dive bombers.

766 long tons (778 t) of fuel oil was carried, giving an endurance of 4,400 nmi (5,100 mi; 8,100 km) at 20 kn (23 mph; 37 km/h).

[1] In 1957, with sister ships Lagos and Solebay, Hogue patrolled off Cyprus, searching the fishing boats for arms and explosives.

In September, it was claimed by Iceland that she had collided with the trawler Northern Foam while trying to prevent her being boarded by the Maria Julia.

While participating in a night-time exercise with other navies off Ceylon on 25 August, the Indian light cruiser INS Mysore, rammed into Hogue, effectively crushing the destroyer's bow and folding it level to the side of the ship,[18][verification needed] killing a sailor and injuring three others.