Rotherham was completed in 1942 and equipped as a flotilla leader, having slightly reduced armament to allow for the increased complement and working space required.

After a period of training at Scapa Flow, she was assigned to serve in the South Atlantic, operating as convoy escort between Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Cape Town and Durban, South Africa for the rest of the year.

Further anti-shipping and shore bombardments followed, and in April she provided cover for Allied landings near Rangoon during "Operation Dracula".

[2] Rotherham was then deployed in "Operation Zipper", the British liberation of Penang, and in early September, as part of "Operation Tiderace", escorted a fleet led by the cruiser Sussex to Singapore to take the surrender of the 77,000 Japanese there.

The ship remained at Singapore until 27 September 1945, when she sailed to Trincomalee, leaving there on 2 October for Portsmouth, where she was decommissioned and put into the Reserve.