Following commissioning and manned by an Australian crew, Quiberon proceeded to Scapa Flow. Until late August she was engaged in working up exercises in northern Scottish waters and was then detailed to North Atlantic convoy escort duty.
One of her first tasks was to form part of the escort of a twenty-one ship troop convoy bound for Capetown but was detached from this duty to search for a suspected U-Boat supply ship in the Atlantic. After a fruitless search over a wide area Quiberon reached Freetown on 27 September. She then proceeded to Gibraltar and back to British home waters, having steamed 12, miles and spent only three out of forty-two days in harbour.
During this period of her service, which took her into the Mediterranean for the first time, Quiberon experienced her first contact with the enemy when she became the frequent target of aircraft. On 28 November , while operating off the Tunisian coast north west of Bone in company of her sister ship HMS Quentin , she attacked and destroyed the Italian submarine Dessie.
On 1 December Quiberon formed a unit of a force of three cruisers and three destroyers despatched from Bone, Tunisia, to intercept an enemy convoy reported bound from Sicily to Tunis. Contact was made in the early hours of 2 December and all four ships of the convoy and the escorting Italian destroyer Lupo were sunk, but Quentin was sunk by an aircraft torpedo on the way back to Bone and at dawn Quiberon , while under heavy air attack, was called upon to rescue her complement.
Quiberon operated in North African waters on convoy and fleet escort duties for the remainder of December and throughout January On 21 December she assisted in rescuing survivors from the liner Strathallan , torpedoed off the Algerian coast by U , later landing them at Algiers. At the end of January Quiberon left the Mediterranean as a unit of the escort of a convoy bound from England to Capetown. She arrived at Durban on 27 February and from there proceeded to Australia, arriving at Fremantle on 29 March, having steamed 51, miles on war service.
