 In October the ship was transferred to Freetown to hunt for German commerce raiders in the South Atlantic with Force K. The ship and her half @-@ sisters , Hardy , <unk> , and <unk> , rendezvoused with the battlecruiser <unk> , the aircraft carrier Ark Royal , and the light cruiser Neptune on 17 December . They <unk> in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil , before proceeding to the estuary of the River Plate in case the damaged German pocket battleship Admiral <unk> <unk> attempted to escape from <unk> , Uruguay , where she had taken refuge after losing the Battle of the River Plate . Hostile was overhauled at Chatham Dockyard between 26 January and 29 March 1940 and then rejoined the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla , now assigned to the Home Fleet . During the First Battle of Narvik on 10 April the ship engaged the German destroyer <unk> <unk> von <unk> and badly damaged her , hitting her at least five times . Hostile was only hit once , but the shell did little damage . She escorted her badly damaged sister ship , Hotspur , to the repair base set up at <unk> in the <unk> Islands . Hostile briefly escorted the battleship HMS Warspite before she returned to Rosyth for repairs between 27 April and 4 May . The ship briefly returned to Norwegian waters , where she again escorted Warspite , before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in mid @-@ May . 
