Following completion of her conversion in December 1940, HMT Bedfordshire undertook anti-submarine patrols and escort duty off the southwest coast of England and in the Bristol Channel.

The United States Navy was ill-prepared to defend against submarine warfare, and U-boats found it easy to pick off commercial shipping vessels, which travelled unescorted.

She operated out of Morehead City, North Carolina, primarily in sectors two and three, where she patrolled the waters surrounding the Outer Banks[6] while U-boats continued to terrorize local shipping.

[6] On 1 May, a plane reported having spotted a lifeboat some 255 nautical miles (472 km) east of Cape Lookout, and Bedfordshire was sent on a search and rescue mission.

[11] At noon on 10 May Bedfordshire and HMT St Zeno departed Morehead City to escort a convoy to Hatteras, arriving safely near midnight.

[13][14] A 38th crewman, a young stoker named Sam Nutt, had been detained at Morehead City by local police and narrowly missed boarding the ship for her last patrol.

The Royal Navy flag draped over Cunningham's coffin was one of several that he himself had given to a local man less than a month earlier for the funeral ceremonies of British seamen.

[19] In late May or early June, a sixth body, belonging to Seaman Alfred Dryden, washed ashore at Swan Quarter, North Carolina.

It was buried in Oak Grove Baptist Cemetery at Creeds, Virginia, with three of the dead from HMT Kingston Ceylonite, sunk by a mine on 15 June 1942, whose bodies washed ashore nearby.

Regular maintenance is handled by the US Coast Guard and local residents as a gesture of gratitude and respect to the fallen men and an act of comity to the British government.

[21] The Commonwealth War Graves Commission also provided headstones for the four British servicemen interred in Creeds, Virginia, including Alfred Dryden of the Bedfordshire.