 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 , Hereward , and Hasty , rendezvoused with the battlecruiser Renown , the aircraft carrier Ark Royal , and the light cruiser Neptune on 17 December . They refuelled in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil , before proceeding to the estuary of the River Plate in case the damaged German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee attempted to escape from Montevideo , 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 Z17 Diether von Roeder 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 Flakstadøya in the Lofoten 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 . 
