The German torpedo boat T5 was one of a dozen Type 35 torpedo boats built for the Kriegsmarine during the late 1930s. Completed in 1940, she was assigned escort duties in June–July before she was tasked to escort minelayers as they laid their minefields in the North Sea and English Channel in August and September. T5 was transferred to Norway by November and escorted minelaying missions and supported operations in the Baltic Sea after the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. T5 returned to France at the end of the year and then escorted a pair of battleships and a heavy cruiser through the Channel back to Germany in early 1942 in the Channel Dash.