the same day for service in the Royal Navy, the destroyer sailed for the British Isles on 29 September. After calling at St. John's, Newfoundland, en route, she arrived at Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 9 October.St Albans and three sister ships – HMS St Mary's, HMS Bath, and HMS Charlestown – were attached to the 1st Minelaying Squadron as permanent escort force. Operating off the west coast of Scotland, the destroyers participated in some of the earliest minelaying operations in the Denmark Strait which separates Iceland from Greenland. Between these escort missions, St Albans escorted convoys. On 17 and 18 January 1941, the destroyer searched for survivors from , torpedoed by on 17 January. St Albans underwent repairs at Chatham in February to prepare for her transfer to the Royal Norwegian Navy-in-exile on 14 April. As HNoMS St AlbansSt Albans had no sooner entered service with the Norwegians than she collided with the minesweeping trawler HMS Alberic, sinking the trawler and sustaining enough damage herself to necessitate repairs in the dockyard. When again ready for action, HNoMS St Albans joined the 7th Escort Group, operating out of Liverpool. On 12 June, she picked up the survivors from the sunken steamship – torpedoed that day by the – and brought them safely to Liverpool. On 3 August 1941, while bound from Sierra Leone to the United Kingdom in the screen of convoy SL 81, St Albans joined the destroyer and the in sinking . During subsequent operations screening convoys in shipping lanes between West Africa and the British Isles, St Albans made a score of attacks on U-boats but did not achieve another kill. During the following autumn, a heavy gale severely damaged St Albans while she was escorting convoy ON 22 on 8 October. Despite the high seas and strong winds, St Albanss Norwegian reached Reykjavík, Iceland safely. The destroyer's seaworthiness and the seamanship exhibited by her Norwegian crew elicited a warm commendatory signal from the Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches (C-in-C WA). In this message of 12 October 1941, he also praised the destroyer's exemplary steaming performance during the previous three months.St Albans, meanwhile, continued her escort duties with the 7th Escort Group into 1942. In March, she escorted the damaged aircraft carrier from Liverpool to the Clyde and, in the following month, helped to screen convoy PQ 15 as it carried materiel to northern Russia. During the operation, heavy German