After completing her refit on 26 April, "Wild Swan" joined the 1st Destroyer Flotilla based at Portsmouth. A shortage of escorts off West Africa resulted in "Wild Swan" being ordered to transfer to Freetown, Sierra Leone. Before she was due to sail for Africa, the sinking of the British battlecruiser by the in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, resulted in "Wild Swan", together with and being ordered to stand by at Plymouth, ready to be sent to intercept the German Battleship or to escort the battleships and (there was a chance that fuel shortages could force the Battleships' destroyer escort to turn back, leaving them unprotected against submarine attack). "Bismarck" was sunk on the night of 26/27 May without the need for the three elderly destroyers to intervene, but late on 27 May, the three destroyers were instead ordered to go to the aid of the Ocean boarding vessel , which had been set on fire by German bombers off Cape Cornwall, near Land's End. "Wild Swan" picked up twenty survivors from "Registan", although four of them died. The three destroyers joined the escort to the Cape-bound convoy WS-8X on 1 June 1941, being detached from the convoy on 3 June and reaching Gibraltar on 6 June. The three destroyers took part in escort duties during the rendezvous of the aircraft carriers and prior to Operation Tracer, but "Wild Swan" returned to Gibraltar on 10 June. The three destroyers set out for West Africa on 13 June, sailing for Freetown via Bathurst, and arriving at Freetown on 18 June.