fitted with ASDIC, and the depth charge outfit was increased to 15 charges. Service While ordered for service in the Persian Gulf, both Bridgewater and her sister ship were first deployed to the China Station. In early August 1930, Bridgewater ferried troops of the Green Howards to Hankou, formerly site of a British concession, in response to threats posed by the fighting of the Central Plains War to foreigners. In 1931 Bridgewater, along with the survey ships and carried out a survey of the shallow area of the South China Sea known as the Dangerous Ground as part of a search for potential secret seaplane bases in case of war. In August 1931 she took part in the search for the missing cargo ship , which had been sunk by a typhoon off Taichow Island. Bridgewater remained on the China Station until 1935, when she came under the Commander-in-Chief, Africa (who in September 1939 became Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic). The ship returned to Devonport Dockyard on 1 September 1936 for a month's refit and then returned to Simonstown. Bridgewater had her second high-angle four-inch gun installed during a refit there. It was interrupted by the Munich Crisis of September 1938 when she was ordered to Freetown, Sierra Leone. The ship later resumed her refit and remained in South Africa until she returned to Devonport for another refit on 13 April 1939. It was completed on 17 May when Bridgewater began a leisurely cruise back to South Africa and arrived there in August. Second World War When the Second World War began in the following month, the ship was briefly transferred to Freetown for convoy escort duties before returning to South Africa. She returned to Freetown in January 1940 and remained there until she needed her bottom cleaned in June. On 13 September, Bridgewater rendezvoused with a convoy that was carrying troops intended to capture Dakar from the Vichy French, and resumed her former duties after its unsuccessful conclusion. The lack of docking facilities in Freetown forced the ship to return to Simonstown to have her hull cleaned in February 1941 and January 1942. In July, she escorted a convoy to the UK and then began a lengthy refit that saw her Vickers .50 machine guns replaced by a pair of Oerlikon light AA guns, a Type 271 surface-search radar was installed and she also received a HF/DF radio direction finder mounted