The cruiser was commissioned in 1943, and served during World War II on the Arctic convoys, during the Normandy landings, and as part of the British Pacific Fleet.

She arrived at Colombo in Ceylon on 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 (Operation Meridian).

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.

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.

[10] The cruiser was decommissioned again in August 1955, and after the decision in the British 1957 Defence White Paper to strike the remaining Royal Navy Dido and Improved Didos as too outdated to be used again or modernized, Black Prince was reduced to extended 3rd class reserve,[11] and used as an accommodation ship[12] for refitting warships and spare part source for Royalist's 1960-1 refit, before reverting to Royal Navy control for disposal in line with its loan terms.

She was sold for scrap in March 1962 and towed from Auckland on 5 April to the Mitsui & Company, Osaka breakage yards, Japan, by the tug Benten Maru, arriving there on 2 May 1962.