 When World War II began on 3 September , Fraser was transiting the Panama Canal and arrived at Halifax on 15 September . She and her sisters were employed as local escorts to ocean convoys sailing from Halifax . In November the Royal Navy 's North America and West Indies Station took operational control of the Canadian destroyers . The ship escorted the convoy bringing most of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division to Britain part way across the North Atlantic in mid @-@ December . In March 1940 she was ordered to join the Jamaica Force for Caribbean patrols before being reassigned to Western Approaches Command two months later . On 26 May she left Bermuda for Britain and arrived at Plymouth on 3 June where she was pressed into service evacuating Allied troops from various French ports on the Atlantic coast . Sometime in 1940 , the ship 's aft set of torpedo tubes was removed and replaced by a 4 @-@ inch ( 102 mm ) AA gun . 
