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Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday, September 10, 2025: Scots, East!

Above we see, almost exactly 75 years ago, a Balmoral capped and STEN-gun toting CPL John MacDonald of the 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, waiting to embark on the modified Fiji (Uganda)-class light cruiser HMS Ceylon (C 30) in Hong Kong on 25 August 1950 for an emergency sealift to help defend the embattled enclave of Pusan, South Korea.

MacDonald’s war chariot made sense. Despite her name, Ceylon was built in Scotland and “paid for” by its residents. Korea was her second major Pacific war.

The Ugandas

A borderline “treaty” cruiser of interwar design, the Fijis amounted to a class that was one short of a dozen with an 8,500-ton standard displacement. In WWII service, this would balloon to a very top-heavy weight of over 11,000. Some 15 percent of the standard displacement was armor.

As described by Richard Worth in his Fleets of World War II, the design was much better off than the previous Leander-class cruisers, and essentially “the Admiralty resolved to squeeze a Town [the immediately preceding 9,100-ton light cruiser class] into 8,000 tons.”

With a fine transom stern, they were able to achieve over 32 knots on a plant that included four Admiralty 3-drum boilers driving four Parsons steam turbines, their main armament amounted to nine 6″/50 (15.2 cm) BL Mark XXIII guns in three triple Mark XXI mountings in the case of our cruiser and her two immediate full sisters (HMS Uganda and HMS Newfoundland).

A strong secondary battery of eight QF HA 4″/45 Mark XVIs in four twin mountings gave excellent DP capabilities.

Meet Ceylon

Our vessel is at least the fourth (and surely the last) Royal Navy warship to carry the name of the British colony of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, which was under Crown rule from 1796 to 1948.

The first was an ex-East Indiaman that served as a 38-gun fifth rate and then as a 40-gun frigate from 1793 through 1857. She is perhaps best known for her stirring overnight action off the island of Bourbon in 1810 against two French ships.

The second and third were private craft taken up from service in the Great War (ex-Seaton, 149grt, and ex-Lady Ina, 311grt). The latter, serving as a group leader in the special yacht squadrons in the Mediterranean, earned a battle honor for the Dardanelles from June 1915 to May 1916.

Our subject cruiser was built by Stephen and Sons, Ltd., Govan, in Scotland, under the Admiralty’s 1938 Build Programme. Laid down four months before WWII on 27 April 1939 as Job No. 1469, the same yard had previously built her sister, HMS Kenya (C14), as Job No. 566.

Ceylon was launched on 30 July 1942, christened by Lady Dorothy Macmillan, and, after 11 months of fitting out, commissioned on 29 June 1943, with Capt. Guy Beresford Amery-Parkes, RN, in command.

A regular with 32 years’ service on his jacket, Amery-Parks had entered the RN as a cadet at Dartmouth at age 13, shipped out for his first war as a 16-year-old midshipman in August 1914 on the cruiser HMS Amphitrite, and saw service at Jutland on the Bellerophon-class dreadnought HMS Superb as an acting sub-lieutenant. During the 1930s, he had served as XO on two cruisers, HMS Delhi and Frobisher, before a stint as gunnery officer on the battleship Warspite. Fast forward to WWII, he had almost gone down with the minesweeping sloop HMS Sphinx (J69) when she was sunk in 1940 and had previously commanded the net layer HMS Guardian (T 89) during the invasion of Vichy-held Madagascar in 1942.

After an amazingly successful “Warship Week” National Savings campaign in February 1942, the future HMS Ceylon was adopted by the civil corporation of the city of Dundee in Scotland, with a population of 164,000. The city had raised a whopping £3,782,775 in loans to the Exchequer between 31 January and 7 February 1942, about twice as much as the cost of HMS Ceylon, so the Admiralty got a good deal on that one.

City representatives swapped out plaques and other items on the stern of “their” cruiser on 2 July, before an assembled crew under the watchful bores of Ceylon’s big guns.

Ceylon was girded and ready for war, spending most of August in large-scale tactical exercises off Scapa Flow.

It Ain’t Half Hot Mum

Nominated for service with the British Eastern Fleet based in Ceylon, her namesake colony, our cruiser was given extra 20mm Oerlikon mounts for added AAA defense against Japanese aircraft.

On 30 October 1943, she shoved off for parts East via the Bay of Biscay, Gibraltar, Port Said, and Aden, arriving in Bombay on 27 November. She was assigned to RADM A.D. Read’s 4th Cruiser Squadron at Trincomalee, joining the Town-class light cruiser HMS Newcastle and sister HMS Kenya.

She was feted upon arrival in Colombo, the hometown ship sorts, at least by name.

Ceylon spent the first part of 1944 on a series of exercises with her squadron, culminating with a sweep into the Bay of Bengal, Operation Initial, in March, centered around the battlecruiser HMS Renown, battleship HMS Valiant, and aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious.

April 1944 saw our cruiser as part of Task Force 69, built around the battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth (flying the flag of Admiral J.F. Somerville, KCB, KBE, DSO, RN, C-in-C Eastern Fleet), Valiant, and the Free French Richelieu.

The force was an over-the-horizon screen during Operation Cockpit, a carrier raid by the Eastern Fleet (TF 70 and the carriers Illustrious and USS Saratoga) against Sabang in the Japanese-held Dutch East Indies.

Operation Transom in May 1944 was a near repeat, swapping out Sabang for occupied Surabaya, with Ceylon this time screening the carriers themselves.

The next month would see Operation Councillor, another carrier raid on Sabang (June 10-13), followed by Operation Pedal, a series of strikes in the Andaman Islands.

July 1944 would see another run at Sabang (Operation Crimson), this time screening the battlewagons Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, and Richelieu, along with the battlecruiser HMS Renown, and the carriers Illustrious and HMS Victorious. Our cruiser fired in anger for the first time, hitting enemy positions in shore bombardment during the operation, her 6-inch guns accompanied by Queen Elizabeth’s 15s. In all, the light cruiser sisters HMS Nigeria, Kenya, Ceylon, and HMNZS Gambia fired 324 6-inch shells during the raid, along with a similar number of 4-inchers.

More of the same came in August with Operation Banquet, striking Padang with the battlewagon Howe now riding shotgun with the flattops HMS Indomitable and Victorious. Following the end of a very hectic five months of operations and a year deployed, Ceylon made for Durban, South Africa, in September, where she spent the rest of the year in refit.

January 1945 saw Ceylon back with the armored carriers Illustrious, Indomitable, and Victorious for strikes against oil refineries in Sumatra at Pangkalan-Brandan (Operation Lentil) and Palembang (Operation Meridian).

April 1945 saw Ceylon again bring her big guns into action with Operation Bishop, a surface bombardment of Burma’s Car Nicobar to provide cover for Operation Dracula– the amphibious landings off Rangoon. Ceylon and the cruiser HMS Suffolk of Bismarck fame were tasked to soak enemy AA positions just before sunrise on 30 April, clearing the way for later air strikes. HMS Cumberland of Graf Spee fame and Ceylon shifted to ruining Japanese airstrips with 8-inch and 6-inch shells the next morning.

This capped the run of Capt. Amery-Parkes, who was relieved by the incoming Capt. Kenneth Lanyon Harkness, DSC, RN, on 12 May.

August 1945 saw Ceylon steaming as part of Force 11, centered on the battleship HMS Nelson and four escort carriers, under Operation Beecham, the occupying amphibious landings at Penang. For this, her RM detachment was paired with those from three other cruisers and Nelson to form a light battalion (400 men), dubbed Force Roma, which was going to take the surrender of 3,000 emplaced Japanese defenders.

In the end, Force Roma was kept on their ships as, on 28 August, Japanese VADM Sueto Hirose arrived aboard Nelson to negotiate the formal surrender of the Japanese forces in Penang. The Indian 26th Division would instead arrive for occupation duty in mid-October, with the Japanese tasked informally with keeping order until then.

By 9 September, Ceylon was covering the planned Operation Zipper landings of Allied troops on the Malayan coast, which were a whole lot less bloody than originally envisioned.

During the Japanese surrender ceremony at Singapore on 12 September, selected members of her ship’s company formed part of the guard of honor for the ceremony.

Following the liberation of Malaya and Singapore, Ceylon was ordered home, which meant she *had* to stop off at Colombo on the way for a week-long port call.

Ceylon arrived at Portsmouth on 25 October 1945, having steamed 115,000 nm during the war, and was promptly paid off into the Reserve fleet. She had earned the battle honors Sabang (1944) and Burma (1945) during her service.

Korea!

After four years of slumber, Ceylon was brought out of mothballs in Portsmouth in early 1950 to relieve the cruiser HMS Birmingham with the 4th Cruiser Squadron of the East Indies Fleet. Her skipper would be Capt. Cromwell Felix Justin Lloyd-Davies DSC, RN, who had commanded the light cruiser HMS Glasgow (21) in the latter months of WWII.

While the old Birmingham was slated for an in-depth two-year refit, Ceylon was given a much more modest refresh and left for the Far East on 15 April 1950, with the intention of her crew to “work up” along the way. She arrived at Trincomalee on 22 June.

In a desperate response to the invasion of South Korea on 25 June 1950 and the subsequent United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs) 82, 83, 84, and 85, Great Britain became one of 22 countries contributing either combat forces or medical assistance to support South Korea under the UN flag. That muscle, besides the British Far East Fleet, required some boots on the ground. In response, Ceylon was dispatched to the Far East on a “temporary secondment of about three months”

With that, 27 Brigade, which had garrisoned Hong Kong since 1949, would dispatch its Brigade Headquarters and two battalions– 1st Bn, Argyll and Sutherland and 1st Bn, Middlesex Regiment– to the desperately holding Pusan Perimeter immediately. Rather than schlep them there in slow troopships, it was decided that Ceylon– transferred to the Far East Fleet– would carry the Argylls while the carrier HMS Unicorn would tote the “Die Hards” of the Middlesex.

Severely under strength (as was every other UN battalion sent to Korea in 1950), the Argylls rapidly absorbed 17 men from the Royal Leicesters, 25 from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, 38 from the South Staffordshire Regiment, and 53 from the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, all volunteers, to bring the Battalion up to its 600-strong Korean war establishment.

General Sir John Harding, the Commander-in-Chief of the Far East Forces, and Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, the High Commissioner for South East Asia, came down to the docks to see the two battalions off to war while the band of the Scottish Borderers played them out while the Argylls own band, augmented by Ceylon’s RM band, matched them from the cruiser’s quarterdeck.

As detailed in Lt.Col. G I Malcolm’s “The Argylls in Korea,” the “Jocks” were crammed in every space the cruiser would allow for the short yet almost enjoyable 1,200 nm sprint to Pusan, one that involved not only running through notorious late summer China Sea rain squalls but the also a darkened ship run past Formosa (Taiwan) at night, just in case the Red Chinese were on alert in those waters.

Almost as soon as the Battalion had reached Holt’s Wharf, officers and men found themselves stowed away in the ship’s interior, allotted to wardroom, gunroom, petty officers’ mess, and mess decks, and made to feel they were the welcome guests of the ship’s company. Thus, laid the foundation of a very happy comradeship. The ordinary sailors, knowing from their experience on the China station that a feeling of insecurity is engendered in ‘Pongos’ who find themselves with neither land nor whitewash in sight, made all the necessary allowances for their passengers. Certainly, no soldiers had better hosts, and once they understood (‘hauled in’) the basic English of naval vocabulary and timekeeping, they all felt that a life on the ocean wave, at any rate in decent weather, had much to commend it.

They shoved off at 1830 on 25 August and docked at Pusan at noon on the 29th, an elapsed time of about 90 hours, with a Korean Army band welcoming them to a hastily learned “God Save the King.”

By the evening of 30 August, the Argylls would be on the move to the front and would suffer their first of 171 casualties in their first eight-month tour of Korea while deployed along the Naktong river south-west of Taegu on 6 September.

With her Jocks landed, Ceylon was soon made part of the Inchon landing force (Operation Chromite), taking part in diversionary shore bombardment. Ceylon put a landing party ashore on the island of Taechong Do, where they reported that a previously observed North Korean troop concentration had departed.

“We were off the North Korean coast, not a light anywhere. We felt the malevolent force of the Chinese ashore there. Morale was rock bottom,” recalled 18-year-old Midshipman (later RADM) Ian Mclean Crawford, AO, AM.

As she had sailed from Portsmouth in April with a “peacetime” complement, it wasn’t until October 1950 that augmentees from Europe arrived to bring her crew to strength. As noted by her reunion association, “Her first two patrols had been carried out with a much reduced company, which made the duty of Defence Stations hard going, as it had meant that the close-range guns crews were closed up from dawn to dusk each day.”

She continued her Korean service until she was relieved by HMS Belfast in February 1951.

• On 4 February 1952, Ceylon and the destroyer HMS Cockade covered the landings by South Korean raiders on the Mudo Islands from LST-516 and 692.
• On 26 June 1952, Ceylon was only narrowly missed by enemy coastal batteries near Popkyo-ri, in which two shells came within 1,000 yards of the cruiser. She responded with 24 rounds of 6-inch, smothering the observed gun flash positions and received no return fire.
• On 29 June 1952, Ceylon supported a raid on Yongmae-do with the destroyer HMS Comus and frigate HMS Amethyst, in which the raiders returned at daylight with two prisoners.

During her Korean deployments (August ’50 – July ’52), Ceylon spent 458 days at sea, steaming some 77,800 miles, discharging 6,877 rounds of 6-inch, as well as 1,965 of 4-inch, plus large quantities of 20mm and 40mm close-range ammunition.

Capt. Lloyd-Davies would add a DSO to his WWII-era DSC for his command of Ceylon during the “police action.”

Salad Days

Following six months in ordinary in Singapore, Ceylon returned to service with a new crew (her old one returning to England on HMS Vengeance) and managed a series of peacetime ceremonial engagements over the next few years including being present at the birth of the Maldive Islands Republic in January 1953, the 150th anniversary of the first settlement in Tasmania in February 1954 (she would later also be on hand for Ghana’s Independence), and escorting the steamer SS Gothic during the Royal Tour of Australasia in April 1954, which included a visit to the ship by the Queen.

She was then ordered back to England, arriving at Portsmouth on 1 October 1954.

As tradition has it, she again stopped off in Ceylon for a port call on the way back to Europe.

Given an extended 22-month refit at Portsmouth, she emerged much more modern, landing her torpedo tubes and dated sensors for a newer Type 960 long-range air warning radar and picking up American Mark 63 radar FCS for her 4-inch guns. Emerging in July 1956, she was rushed to the Eastern Mediterranean to participate in the Suez operations (Operation Musketeer Revise), where she once again provided NGFS ashore.

She made another trip to Ceylon, visiting Trincomalee in October 1957 on the occasion of the base being handed over to the newly independent Ceylon Navy.

In 1958, she was once again pressed into service as a troop transport, carrying Jocks– 1st Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles)– out of Jordan.

After one last trip to Ceylon, as part of Exercise Jet in September 1959 as the flagship of RADM Sir Varyl Cargill Begg, HMS Ceylon returned to Portsmouth, where she was paid off on 1 January 1960, capping a hectic 14-year career that saw the sun set on much of the British Empire.

South America Bound

Just five weeks after she was stricken from the Royal Navy, ex-Ceylon was sold to the government of Peru and handed over on 9 February 1960.

Renamed BAP Coronel Bolognesi (CL-82) in honor of the heroic Peruvian Coronel Francisco Bolognesi, she would serve alongside her old sister ex-Newfoundland (BAP Almirante Grau, later Capitan Quinones), which had been transferred two months prior.

Ceylon/Bolognesi arrived at her new home port of Callao on 19 March 1960, fully dressed in her glad rags.

These are via the Peruvian Naval archives:

She provided sterling work in humanitarian assistance during the 1970 Ancash earthquake, served in regular UNITAS exercises, and was later modified to operate a Bell 47G (H-13 Sioux) from her stern.

Sister Newfoundland/Almirante Grau/Capitan Quinones was reduced to a pier-side training hulk in 1979 and subsequently scrapped, leaving Ceylon/Bolognesi as the next to last of her class (other than ex-HMS Nigeria, which continued to serve with the Indian Navy until 1985 as INS Mysore) in service.

Ceylon/Bolognesi was decommissioned in May 1982 and then towed to Taiwan to be scrapped in 1985. She had made it 42 years.

Epilogue

Little remains of our subject.

I suspect her 1943 plaque presented to the City of Dundee may still be in a place of honor there. If anyone has seen it, please drop an image.

She is remembered in maritime art.

An HMS Ceylon Association exists with an online presence, although its last reunion was in 2018.

One of her 6-inch guns tampions, adorned with her elephant crest, recently surfaced on a Trinity Marine auction, which probably means the other eight are floating around the UK as well, perhaps saved before the cruiser went to Peru under a different name.

Ceylon’s first skipper, Capt. Guy Beresford Amery-Parkes, who had commanded her throughout WWII, post-war moves ashore as the Deputy Superintendent, Captain of the Dockyard & King’s Harbour Master, at HM Dockyard Portsmouth aboard HMS Victory. He left the service due to ill health in 1947, capping a 36-year career. He passed in October 1955 in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex.

Capt. Cromwell Felix Justin Lloyd-Davies, her impeccably named Korean War skipper, would retire in 1955 and pass in 1998 in Buckinghamshire, at a ripe old age of 95.

The last flag officer to fly his flag from her mast, Sir Varyl Begg– who was in charge of Warspite’s guns at Cape Matapan– went on to become a full admiral and talked the RN into the “through deck cruiser” concept that led to the Invincible class Harrier carriers, arguably Britain’s final cruisers.

As for the Jocks that Ceylon carried, the Argylls served with the British Army until 2006, when the historic regiment was amalgamated into The Royal Regiment of Scotland and today make up its Balaklava Company.

The Cameronians served with the British Army until 1968, when the regiment made the rare yet respectable choice to disband rather than be amalgamated.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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