"Hasty" escorted convoys between Port Said, Egypt and Gibraltar immediately after World War II began in September. 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 sisters, , , and , rendezvoused with the battlecruiser , the aircraft carrier , and the light cruiser 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 attempted to escape from Montevideo, Uruguay, where she had taken refuge after losing the Battle of the River Plate. "Hasty" was ordered to the UK in January 1940 to refit and captured the German blockade runner SS "Morea" in the North Atlantic on 12 February en route.