NMS Regele Ferdinand was the lead ship of her class of two destroyers built in Italy for the Romanian Navy in the late 1920s. After the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), she was limited to escort duties in the western half of the Black Sea during the war by the powerful Soviet Black Sea Fleet which heavily outnumbered Axis naval forces in the Black Sea. The ship may have sunk two Soviet submarines during the war. In early 1944 the Soviets were able to cut off and surround the port of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. Regele Ferdinand covered convoys evacuating Axis troops from Sevastopol and was badly damaged in May when she rescued some troops herself.