HMS Tartar was a Tribal-class destroyer of the Royal Navy that saw service in most of the naval theatres of World War II.

[7] The primary armament of the Tribal-class destroyers was eight quick-firing (QF) 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mark XII guns in four superfiring twin-gun mounts, one pair each fore and aft of the superstructure, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear.

[12] To increase the firing arcs of the AA guns, the rear funnel was shortened and the mainmast was reduced to a short pole mast.

[15] The ship was ordered on 19 June 1936 from Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson and was laid down on 26 August at the company's Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, shipyard.

Further work-up exercises revealed defects, and Tartar was under repair in Devonport Dockyard until the end of July 1939, after which she joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, she carried out a number of activities with her flotilla, including screening major warships, intercepting blockade runners and commerce raiders and anti-submarine patrols.

On 24 November, she was deployed with other Home Fleet ships to search for the German light battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau after the sinking of the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi.

This was a defect common to the Tribal-class destroyers, and Tartar was under repair at the yards of Alexander Stephen and Sons in Govan on the River Clyde until 29 December.

She was back in the North Sea in early June, escorting the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and the battleship Valiant.

She also escorted a number of allied evacuation convoys, and carried out another unsuccessful search for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau after the sinking of the aircraft carrier Glorious.

It is estimated that about 50 aircraft took part in the attacks over a period of 13 hours..."[20] The Mashona was hit and badly damaged, eventually capsizing, but in return Tartar shot down an He 111 bomber.

"[22] Tartar resumed her duties with the Home Fleet in June 1941, when she was attached to a small force whose aim was to capture a German weather ship to obtain an Enigma coding machine and associated documentation.

On 28 June the task force spotted the German weather ship Lauenburg and a boarding party from Tartar seized control of the vessel, recovering important documentation.

On 17 August she screened the battleship Prince of Wales that was carrying Winston Churchill back from his Atlantic Charter meeting with President Roosevelt.

When Prince of Wales arrived on the River Clyde, Tartar embarked the Prime Minister and took him to Greenock for his return to London.

On 20 August Tartar escorted the troopship Empress of Australia and support ship RFA Oligarch to Spitsbergen to establish a garrison.

She then underwent a refit, carried out by Green and Silley Weir, Royal Albert Dock, London, which lasted from September until mid-October.

On 8 March Tartar screened Home Fleet units carrying out an unsuccessful search for the German battleship Tirpitz.

On 28 April 1943, Tartar carried out an attack on E-boats near Marettimo, Sicily, and on 7 May she deployed with other destroyers of the Mediterranean Fleet to blockade the Cape Bon area to intercept craft attempting to evacuate enemy personnel from Tunisia.

On 11 July, she rescued some 200 survivors from the hospital ship Talamba, which had been sunk by German air attack off the beach head.

On 12 July Tartar sank the Allied Ammunition ship SS Baarn, which was on fire after being damaged in air attacks.

On 19 September, Tartar provided gunfire support during a German counter-attack, and subsequently came under attacks from radio-controlled glider bombs She returned to the UK at the end of October and spent the last months of 1943, and January and February 1944, under refit at Devonport.

In March and April 1944 she deployed as the Leader of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla with the Plymouth Command to carry out offensive patrols against coastal shipping off the French coast, as well as escorting allied convoys through the English Channel.

On 6 June she led the 10th Destroyer Flotilla into the English Channel to prevent German interference with the landings or the passage of convoys during Operation Neptune.

On 6 August Bellona, Tartar, Ashanti and the Canadian destroyers Haida and Iroquois attacked a convoy off Saint-Nazaire, sinking the minesweepers M263 and M486, the patrol boat V414 and a coastal launch together with four small ships.

Tartar was sold to BISCO for breaking up on 6 January 1948 and arrived at J. Cashmore's yard in Newport, South Wales for demolition on 22 February.