Taken up from trade as a troopship, "Oronsay" took part in the Norwegian Campaign, including Operation Alphabet, the secret evacuation of Narvik on 7 June 1940. Almost immediately afterwards, she participated in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British troops from western France. On 17 June 1940, she was anchored in the Loire Estuary, embarking troops being ferried out from St Nazaire in destroyers and small boats. During an air-raid, a German bomb landed on the ship's bridge, killing several people, destroying the chart, steering and wireless rooms and breaking the captain's leg. Taking on survivors from which had sunk nearby, Captain Norman Savage steered the ship home with the aid of a pocket compass, a sextant and a sketch map.