HMS Black Prince was a Dido class light cruiser, of the Bellona subgroup. The cruiser was commissioned in 1943, and after commissioning, Black Prince served on the Arctic Convoys and then came south in preparation for the invasion of Europe, being employed on offensive sweeps against German coastal convoy traffic. On the night of 25 and 26 April 1944, accompanied by Canadian destroyers, she was involved in the action which sank the torpedo boat T29 and damaged two other off the Brittany coast.

During the Normandy landings  she was part of Force "A" of Task Force 125 in support of Utah Beach. Task Force 125 at this time consisted of American units and the monitor HMS Erebus with several destroyers and destroyer escorts.  Black Prince's target was the battery at Morsalines.  In August, she moved to the Mediterranean and took part in the invasion of Southern France.  On 8 September, Black Prince arrived in Alexandria. She bombarded the airfield at Maleme, Crete to prevent German aircraft from taking off.

On 21 November 1944, Black Prince left Alexandria, passed through the Suez Canal and arrived at Colombo 30 November to join the East Indies Fleet where she covered the aircraft carrier raids against Japanese oil installations and airfields in Sumatra and Malaya.

On 16 January 1945, she sailed as part of the British Pacific Fleet, seeing action off Okinawa and in the final bombardments of the Japanese mainland before withdrawing to repossess Hong Kong in September.

After the Japanese surrender, she remained in the Far East, and was transferred to the Royal New Zealand navy on 25 May 1946. During 1947, the cruiser was docked for modernisation, but this was cancelled following a series of mutinies in April (which included the sailors from Black Prince), as the RNZN no longer had the manpower to operate her. Black Prince was placed in reserve. Work on reactivating the ship began in January 1952, and she was recommissioned in February 1953.  The cruiser was decommissioned again in August 1955, and reverted to Royal Navy control on 1 April 1961.