Ceylon was a Fiji-class light cruiser, ordered from Alexander Stephen at Govan, Glasgow, and laid down on 27 April 1939. She was launched on 30 July 1942. Completion had been planned for 31 December 1942. Geoffrey Mason records that she did not enter service until 13 July 1943, because convoy escorts had the priority for men and for dockyard work. Uboat.net has the same commissioned date. Captain Guy Beresford Amery-Parkes had been appointed on 28 April 1943. On 5 July she left the builder's yard for Greenock. On 12 July she ran full-power trials in the Clyde, and uboat.net says she was accepted from the yard the next day. The city of Dundee had adopted her in February 1942.
She worked up and was nominated for the Eastern Fleet. Mason records a call at Bombay on 27 November 1943 and, in December, that she joined the 4th Cruiser Squadron at Trincomalee. Through the first months of 1944 she was on patrol and convoy defence in the Indian Ocean. On 21 March she sailed in Operation DIPLOMAT with Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, Renown, London, Gambia, and Cumberland, and on the 27th the force met the American carrier Saratoga south-west of the Cocos Islands. On 16 April she was in Task Force 69 for the strike on Sabang. On the 18th she and Gambia moved to Task Force 70 to thicken the screen of Illustrious and Saratoga for the joint attack on Sabang, Operation COCKPIT. In May she went with the same carriers for Operation TRANSOM. She replenished at Exmouth Bay on 15 May and on the 17th covered the flying operations off Soerabaya, Mason's spelling. She was back in Ceylon on 27 May.
On 19 June, as Force 60 with Renown, Nigeria, and Kenya, she covered Illustrious during the air attacks on Port Blair in the Andamans, Operation PEDAL, and she stayed with the carrier through the flying on the 21st. On 22 July she sailed for Operation CRIMSON. On the 25th she bombarded shore installations at Sabang with Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, Renown, the French battleship Richelieu, and the other cruisers. On 24 August, Operation BANQUET, she bombarded Sabang again, and destroyers went into the harbour and torpedoed shipping. In October she went to Durban for a refit and was still there when the British Pacific Fleet was formed on 22 November.
She rejoined the 4th Cruiser Squadron in December 1944. In January 1945 she was in the covering force for Operation LENTIL, the carrier attack on the oil refineries at Pangkalan Brandan in Sumatra, with Indomitable, Victorious, and Indefatigable. On 17 January she sailed with the destroyer Wessex carrying spares and mail for Task Force 63, which had left the day before for Australia and the United States Fifth Fleet. On the 20th she was detached, with Urchin and Wessex, to escort the tankers Echodale, Wave King, and Empire Salvage as the replenishment group for the Palembang strikes, Operations MERIDIAN I and II. On the 30th, those operations finished, she went back to Eastern Fleet duty and passage to Ceylon. She did not go on to the Sakishima Gunto.
On 29 April she was in Task Force 63 covering the Rangoon landings, Operation DRACULA. On the 30th she escorted Queen Elizabeth and Richelieu, with the escort carriers Shah and Empress, Cumberland, Suffolk, and the Dutch cruiser Tromp, for air attacks on Car Nicobar and Port Blair, and then bombarded shore installations with the task force, Operation BISHOP. The bombardment support went on through 1 May. On 4 May, in Task Force 68, she was out to intercept evacuation traffic between Mergui and Victoria Point. On 12 May Captain Kenneth Lanyon Harkness relieved Amery-Parkes. From 1 June Harkness had her on offensive patrol off Burma with Phoebe and six Royal Indian Navy frigates, Task Force 69, until 16 June, when cruiser support was no longer needed. In July she prepared for the Malayan landings, Operation ZIPPER, and covered military convoys between Ceylon and Rangoon. In August she was on passage to Rangoon with the Eastern Fleet for ZIPPER. Mason records that the assault was postponed at American insistence and delayed until after VJ Day. On 28 August she sailed for Penang with Nelson and the escort carriers Hunter and Attacker. On 2 September she was at Penang for the formal surrender of the Japanese forces by Vice Admiral Hirose. On the 9th she covered the landings on the Malayan coast. Harkness remained in command until 13 November 1945. She was not sunk. Mason says she was sold to Peru in 1960, renamed Coronel Bolognesi, and transferred at Portsmouth on 6 February 1960. Uboat.net dates the sale to 9 February 1960, spells the Peruvian name Colonel Bolognesi, and says she was discarded in May 1982 and scrapped in Taiwan in August 1985.
A note on sources. The builder, the launch on 30 July 1942, the acceptance on 13 July 1943, the Eastern Fleet operations from Sabang to Penang, and the postponement of ZIPPER until after VJ Day are from Geoffrey Mason's chronology Battle honours on that page are Sabang 1944 and Burma 1945. Sabang 1944 and Burma 1945 are the battle honours printed on that page. The April 1942 Indian Ocean raid was fought before she was in service. Command dates are the uboat.net table: Amery-Parkes from 28 April 1943 to 12 May 1945, Harkness from 12 May 1945 to 13 November 1945. Uboat.net's commissioned field is 13 July 1943, the day Mason says she was accepted. Uboat.net spells the Peruvian name Colonel Bolognesi and dates the sale to 9 February 1960. Mason spells Coronel Bolognesi and dates the Portsmouth transfer to 6 February 1960. The chronology prints that year with a capital i in place of the 1. Mason's date and spelling are the ones used for the transfer. The sale day and the 1982 and 1985 disposal dates are uboat.net's. Digitized copies of these pages were used. No photograph was downloaded.