[1] To better defend the ship against Japanese kamikaze suicide aircraft, Whelp had her searchlight replaced by a 40 mm (1.6 in) Bofors AA gun in mid-1944.

[1] As part of her 1962–64 refit, the ship's aft torpedo tubes were removed to make room for a small flight deck and hangar for two Westland Wasp helicopters.

[5][6] Whelp was then assigned to the 27th Destroyer Flotilla which left for the Far East on 2 August and arrived in Trincomalee, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), on 12 September.

When the Eastern Fleet attempted to attack the oil refinery complex at Pangkalan Brandan, Sumatra, in mid-November, Whelp and her sister ship Wager escorted the oiler RFA Wave King.

En route its aircraft attacked the refineries in Plaju and Sungai Gerong, Sumatra, on 24 and 29 January (Operation Meridian I & II) before arriving on 10 February.

[8] Whelp rescued the crew of a crashed Grumman TBF Avenger, Sub-Lieutenant Roy Halliday and his gunner, Norman Richardson, during the second attack.

The BPF retired to Leyte Gulf to rest and resupply on 17 April[10] and Whelp, together with Wager, was tasked to escort the badly damaged carrier Illustrious to Sydney on 3 May.

[7] She rejoined the BPF at Sydney (now attached to the United States 3rd Fleet) and on 31 July escorted the battleship Duke of York to Guam, together with Wager, where they arrived on 9 August.

Whelp was the first Allied ship to enter Sagami Bay on 27 August, leading the way for Duke of York and the American battleships Iowa and Missouri.

En route to Portsmouth, Simon van der Stel stopped in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Dakar, French West Africa and arrived there on 31 July.

On 21 October, the ship escorted SAS Gelderland (the former HMS Brayford, a new Ford-class seaward defence boat back home.

She was modernised according to a modified Type 16 frigate standard, her main armament became four 4-inch guns Mk XVI in two twin positions and she was able to carry two Westland Wasp helicopters.

[16] Simon van der Stel remained in commission for just over a year as manpower shortages mandated that she be reduced back to reserve in March 1965.

In June 1969, she was ordered to proceed to Gough Island to search for two missing members (Jan Seyffert and Fanie Grobler) of the weather station there, but only found their bodies.

Simon van der Stel was reactivated with a skeleton crew in early 1975 for a refit at Durban, but she was deemed too expensive to repair and was scrapped there by Sandock-Austral in late 1976.