The Fiji-class cruisers were a class of eleven light cruisers of the Royal Navy that saw extensive service throughout the Second World War. Each ship of the class was named after a Crown colony or other constituent territory of the British Commonwealth and Empire. The class was also known as the Colony class,[1] or Crown Colony class.[2] Developed as more compact versions of the preceding Town-class cruisers, the last three were built to a slightly modified design and were sometimes also called the Ceylon class.
They were built to the limitations that the 1936 Second London Naval Treaty imposed on cruisers, which lowered the limit for a light cruiser set in the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty from 10,000 tons to 8,000 tons displacement. Externally they appeared as smaller derivatives of the 1936 Town-class cruisers.
The Fiji-class cruisers however, like the Minotaur class that followed in the middle of the war, essentially carried the same armament on a 1,000-tons less displacement. The Fiji and Minotaur classes were very tight designs, built largely in war emergency conditions with little margin for any great updating postwar. The 62-foot (19 m) beam imposing crippling limits.[citation needed]
The Fiji class were distinguishable from the Towns as they had a transom stern and straight funnels and masts; those of the Towns being raked. The armour scheme was revised from that of the Towns; the main belt now protected the ammunition spaces for the 6-inch (150 mm) guns but the belt itself was reduced to 3.5 and 3.25 in (89 and 83 mm) in the machinery spaces. The 6-inch Mk XXIII gun turrets and ammunition spaces were laid out as per the Edinburgh group of the Town class, except the after turrets were positioned a deck lower as in the Southampton and Gloucester groups. The long turret version of the triple 6-inch gun fitted to the Fiji class were 25 tons heavier than the 150-ton turret on the Group 1 & 2 Towns and further cramped the design. The supply of ammunition to the 4-inch (102 mm) guns was also improved, dispensing with the complicated conveyor system.
Due to the limited size of the Fiji class, a number of the ships had their 'X' turret removed to fit additional light anti-aircraft (AA) guns. Ships of the first group were equipped with the High Angle Control System (HACS) for secondary armament AA fire while the Ceylon group used the Fuze Keeping Clock for AA fire control. Both groups used the Admiralty Fire Control Table for surface fire control of the main armament and the Admiralty Fire Control Clock for surface fire control of the secondary armament.[3] By the late 1940s most of the Fiji class had the updated Type 274 'lock and follow' surface fire control radar, which massively increased the chance of hits from the opening salvoes. In the 1950s (except during the Korean War and Suez crisis) no more than one of the MKXIII turrets was ever manned, with 'B' and 'Y' turrets mothballed due to the large number of crew required for their operation. This allowed for more liveable peacetime conditions by operating with a crew of 610–750 rather than the full wartime crew of 1,000–1,100.
The addition of radar sets meant that spotting aircraft were now surplus to requirements,[citation needed] allowing the removal of the aircraft facilities and catapult. Not only did this provide additional accommodation spaces for enlarged wartime crews, but there was no longer the need to carry large quantities of volatile aviation fuel; in 1940, Liverpool had her bow blown off when a torpedo detonated the 5,700 gallons of aviation fuel stored forwards and was out of action for a year. Fiji and Kenya had never received the catapult, Nigeria had hers removed in 1941 and the other ships had theirs removed between 1942 and 1944.
The Ceylon group were completed without 'X' 6-inch turret, and between 1944 and 1945, those of Bermuda, Jamaica, Mauritius and Kenya were also removed. This allowed the carriage of additional light AA weapons, a quadruple QF 2 pdr pom-pom mounting Mark VII generally being carried in 'X' position. Bermuda, Jamaica and Mauritius had 2 additional quadruple pom-poms added (for a total of five) and between two and four single pom-poms in powered mountings Mark XV. In Kenya, all pom-poms were removed, and were replaced with five twin and eight single 40 mm Bofors guns. By the end of the war, Newfoundland had one and Uganda had two American pattern quadruple 40 mm Bofors mounts Mark III and Nigeria had four single mounts Mark III. Generally, 6 to 24 20 mm Oerlikon guns were also added in a mixture of single mounts Mark IIIA and twin powered mounts Mark V.
Postwar modifications of the class were very limited with improved Type 274 lock and follow surface fire control. Newfoundland had a fragile and unreliable 'glasshouse' version of Type 275 for twin 4-inch control,[note 1] Ceylon had the short range type 262 MRS1 AA control which was limited to about 4 km (2.5 mi) range for tracking. Bermuda and Gambia had much more advanced US Mk 63 radar with four High Angle Director-Control Tower (DCT) and separate radar disks on the mounts themselves[4] using systems that were released by the cancellation of HMS Vanguard's 1955 long refit. Slightly improved new versions of the basic twin 4-inch gun mounts were generally fitted in extended refits in 1950; these had electric drive and could train and elevate at 20 degrees/sec to track subsonic jets.
US advice and offers under mutual assistance to replace the obsolete and inaccurate 4-inch guns with twin 3-inch 50-calibre turrets of similar weight and dimensions as the RN twin 4-inch Mark XIX turrets were rejected because the RN had huge stocks of 4-inch shells.[citation needed] These ships would have been altered for water sprays to wash off nuclear fallout and received the Type 960 standard long-range air search radar. Newfoundland received a greater extent of electrical updating and rewiring with more comprehensive AA fire control and was the only Fiji-class vessel updated close to the standard planned for the improved Dido-class ships. The Fiji class were only refitted for shore bombardment and colonial patrol and presence. The mid-1950s refits of Ceylon, Gambia and Bermuda were very austere. They included increasing automation, the life of the geared steam turbines, and reducing manning below decks. There was simplification of the short range anti-aircraft defence to six to eight twin L/60 Bofors in Mk 5 twin mountings with a fire rate increased to 150 rpm per gun (280–300 rpm for each twin mounting). These would have stopped earlier WWII low-level or later Falklands War-type attacks, by which time the RN no longer fitted 40 mm, the last were withdrawn with HMS Bulwark in 1981.[citation needed]
They served with distinction during the Second World War. Jamaica took part in a number of operations, including driving off the heavy cruisers Admiral Hipper and Lützow in 1942, the sinking of the battleship Scharnhorst in 1943, and escorting carrier air attacks on the battleship Tirpitz in 1944. Fiji was sunk in 1941 by German aircraft during the battle of Crete. Trinidad was lost on Arctic convoy duty in 1942; sailing at reduced speed due to damage in a surface action earlier she was set on fire by German air attack and scuttled. The survivors continued in service after the war, taking part in further actions, such as the Korean War.
Ceylon and Newfoundland were sold to Peru in 1959 becoming the Coronel Bolognesi, and Almirante Grau respectively. These two were decommissioned by 1982. Nigeria was sold to India who had it reconstructed in 1954–7 to the same standard as Newfoundland. As INS Mysore, the ship was heavily used from the time of her transfer, seeing action in the 1971 war with Pakistan,[5] and later converted to a harbour training ship in 1979. She was decommissioned by 1984 and then scrapped in 1985, and as such she was the longest-lived (41 years) member of her class.
All ships of the Fiji class were decommissioned from active service with the Royal Navy by 1962 and began being sold for scrap, though Bermuda was fully operational during 1961 and sometimes ventured to sea in 1962 as flagship of the Reserve Fleet. Gambia had been reduced to reserve in December 1960.
During the 1950s the larger Town-class cruisers were usually regarded as more habitable and comfortable in patrolling in the tropics and Far East, although being older their operational use generally ceased by 1958 and went for scrap the following year except for Sheffield (which had at sea deployments as a reserve flagship until late 1960 and was then, maintained as a reserve headquarters ship) and Belfast which stayed in active seaworthy service until 1963. Sheffield and Belfast were the last of the wartime commissioned cruisers considered capable of reactivation for GFS and were in semi maintained reserve until the election of the Labour Government in 1964, which immediately decided to scrap them, pending short term use as accommodation ships and consideration for historical preservation.[citation needed]
The last Fiji-class cruisers were seriously deteriorating due to being in an unmaintained extended reserve status many years. Gambia was considered as an alternative for use as the London museum ship, as the ship's condition was more original than Belfast, but Gambia was sold for scrap in 1968, because the state of the ship made it more expensive to preserve than Belfast.[citation needed] .
