Far East offensive cruising in Operation Irregular

With the European naval war winding down, the Royal Navy still needed ships for anti-submarine warfare and convoy escort in home waters, yet chose to send some of its best destroyers east. Their new task was offensive cruising, with the Tribals operating independently to clear Japanese traffic from the sea route toward Singapore. During Operation Irregular on 12 June 1945, the destroyers detected two small radar echoes near Sumatra. The contacts were a Japanese landing ship and a submarine chaser, which the Tribals attacked as part of the clearing mission. Heavy armament and radar made these ships suitable for the work, as did a large hull with room for valuable wartime upgrades. Those qualities kept an interwar design useful in a distant theatre and on missions requiring initiative away from close fleet supervision.