HMS Panther was a P-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy during the Second World War. After commissioning on 12 December 1941, she made a short trip to Iceland with the battleship King George V, then escorted a British convoy to India. In early April 1942, Panther rescued survivors from two cruisers sunk in the Indian Ocean, after which she took part in Operation Ironclad, the Allied invasion of Vichy French-held Madagascar, and sank a French submarine with another destroyer. Panther then returned to the Mediterranean, and participated in the Allied landings in North Africa, but was severely damaged in an air attack and had to undergo repairs in Gibraltar. After taking on survivors from the torpedoed SS Strathallan, Panther escorted two Allied convoys in the Atlantic. She next supported the Allied attack on Sicily, then sailed to the Aegean Sea in the Dodecanese Campaign. On 9 October 1943, Panther was sunk by German Stuka dive-bombers with 33 dead.

The O and P class was a class of destroyers of the British Royal Navy. Ordered in 1939, they were the first ships in the War Emergency Programme, also known as the 1st and 2nd Emergency Flotilla, respectively. They served as convoy escorts in World War II, and some were subsequently converted to fast second-rate anti-submarine frigates in the 1950s.