flotilla in the Channel, and took part in the Royal Inspection (Reserve Fleet Review) at Portland on 9 August 1939. Second World War Sharpshooter was still a member of the 1st Minesweeping Flotilla in September 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War. The outbreak of war saw Sharpshooter clearing channels through minefields around Scapa Flow and off Loch Ewe and the Clyde estuary. At the end of May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was trapped by German forces at Dunkirk, France and it was decided to launch Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk. Sharpshooter was one of the ships assigned to the evacuation. She made her first evacuation run on the morning of 29 May, landing 69 troops picked up from the Dunkirk beaches at Dover, with a second run made on the morning of the 30 May, picking up 273 troops. Sharpshooter was outbound on another run when at 22:10 hr, she collided with the Dover-bound steamer . Sharpshooters bow was badly damaged, and she was towed back to Dover by the tugboat Foremost 22, the journey taking 11 hours. She was under repair at Sheerness dockyard and Leith until September 1940, the opportunity being taken to fit Sharpshooter with equipment for sweeping magnetic mines. On 20 February 1941 Sharpshooter was approaching Harwich with sister ships , , and when they came under attack by two German aircraft. Bramble was hit by a German bomb that failed to explode, but damage was minimal. From April, Sharpshooter began to be used to escort convoys in the Western Approaches. Arctic convoys On 27 November 1941 she set out from Hvalfjord in Iceland as part of the escort of the Arctic convoy PQ 5 to Archangel in the Soviet Union. Sharpshooter remained in Russia, minesweeping and providing local escort for Arctic convoys as they arrived and left Russian ports. Convoys escorted included PQ 8, PQ 9/10, QP 7 and QP 9. On the night of 17/18 January 1942, Sharpshooter had just joined the escort of PQ 8 when the German submarine torpedoed and sank the destroyer . Sharpshooter helped to rescue survivors from Matebele then launched a counterattack against the submarine. At about 8.25 pm on the evening of 24 March 1942 while escorting QP 9 the leading gunner on the forward four-inch gun of Sharpshooter spotted German submarine U-655 on the surface beam on, about