In 1933, she was briefly commanded by Frederic John Walker, who was to rise to fame as the foremost Allied submarine hunter of World War II.

301 long tons (306 t) of oil could be carried, giving a range of 2,750 nautical miles (5,090 km; 3,160 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).

[3] Shikari was laid down on 15 January 1918,[3] but construction was slowed by the end of the First World War in November 1918,[5] and she was not launched until 14 July 1919.

[3] Early in the Second World War,[a] Shikari, along with several other S-class destroyers based in the UK, was modified as a dedicated anti-submarine escort.

[15] On 15 January 1938, Shikari was escorting Centurion from Devonport to Gibraltar across the Bay of Biscay when the heavy weather caused a fault in her port engine, forcing the destroyer to put into Lisbon.

[17][18] On the outbreak of the Second World War, Shikari was re-armed and from January 1940 carried out convoy escort operations.

[5] At the end of May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was trapped by German forces at Dunkirk, and it was decided to launch Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk, and Shikari was one of the destroyers that took part in the operation,[19] carrying out her first evacuation trip on 28 May, making a second trip on 29 May.

[25] After Dunkirk, Shikari returned to escort work, and on 4 July, when the cargo ship Dallas City was damaged by German dive bombers and then collided with Flimstone, Shikari took off the crew of Dallas City before the cargo ship sank, surviving unscathed when attacked by German bombers.

U-boats sank four merchant ships before the escort group, consisting of the sloop Lowestoft, the corvettes Calendula, Heartsease and La Malouine and Shikari arrived.

Shikari was tasked with rescuing the crews from the torpedoed merchant ships, while the remaining four escorts stayed with the convoy.