Scarborough was ordered on 26 February 1929 under the 1929 building programme[1] and was laid down at the yards of Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd., Wallsend-on-Tyne on 28 May 1929.

Peacetime duties included showing the flag, especially in smaller ports of the Empire, those unlikely to be visited by large warships.

She was on this duty again in 1933 and in 1934 took British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and his daughter up the west coast of Newfoundland to visit the Grenfell Mission at St. Anthony.

On the outbreak of the war in September 1939, she put into Colombo for a refit, where she was rearmed with one 4-inch (102 mm) quick-firing high-angle gun, suitable against either surface or air targets.

Scarborough was nominated to serve in Home waters on completion of her refit, and after passing through the Red Sea and Mediterranean in December, she arrived at Plymouth in January.

Although vulnerable to air attack, there was no aircraft protection in 1940 for Allied ships in the Atlantic Ocean after leaving coastal regions.

A wolfpack of U-boats attacked the convoy and inflicted heavy losses, despite the arrival on 16 October of the sloop HMS Fowey and the corvette Bluebell as reinforcements.

In the spring of 1941, Scarborough intercepted and sank two German-crewed ex-Norwegian whalers that the German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin had captured in the South Atlantic and was sending to German-occupied Bordeaux with their valuable cargo of whale oil.

[citation needed] In April 1941 Scarborough was escorting a convoy through the North Western Approaches when she, HMS Wolverine and Arbutus detected and depth charged U-76, which was forced to the surface and then scuttled.

[citation needed] After completing the refit in October she was nominated to support the planned landings in North Africa (Operation Torch).

Scarborough was to follow closely behind British minesweepers and Trinity House vessels which were making a path through the German minefields near the coast of Normandy.