HMS Bonaventure was the lead ship of the Dido-class light cruisers built for the Royal Navy (RN) during the 1930s and during the Second World War.

Completed in 1940, Bonaventure was assigned to the Home Fleet and participated in Operation Fish, the evacuation of British wealth from the UK to Canada in July.

The ship made one short patrol in August into the North Atlantic to search for German blockade runners and followed that up by escorting an aircraft carrier as it conducted air strikes in Southern Norway in September.

Bonaventure participated in the unsuccessful search for the German commerce raider Admiral Scheer in November and sustained weather damage that caused her to spend time in a dockyard for repairs.

The Dido-class were designed as small cruisers capable of being built quickly and in large numbers to meet the Royal Navy's requirements.

Two triple 21-inch (533 mm) rotating torpedo tube mounts, one on each broadside abaft the aft funnel, provided additional anti-ship capability.

[1] Bonaventure, the seventh ship of her name to serve in the RN,[11] was ordered as part of the 1936 Naval Programme from Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering and was laid down on 30 August 1937 at their Greenock shipyard.

[12] She was assigned to the Home Fleet after working up[13] and was tasked to help ferry the Bank of England's gold reserves and securities to Canada in early July.

Bonaventure, laden with £25 million in bullion and coin, departed the Firth of Clyde early on 8 July in company with the battleship HMS Revenge and rendezvoused with three ocean liners also carrying gold later that morning in the Irish Sea.

[14] On 15 August 1940, Bonaventure and her sister ship Naiad began a five-day patrol off the Faroe Islands in an unsuccessful search for German blockade runners.

Along with three destroyers, she escorted the battlecruiser Repulse to the German ship's last reported position while the rest of the Home Fleet redeployed to cover convoys already at sea or to block the routes leading back to German-occupied Europe.

Coupled with the damage sustained by her sisters in similar conditions, it revealed that the measures taken to reduce weight forward in the ships were excessive and had compromised the hull's strength.

Bonaventure was not initially in a position to engage the German cruiser, but she fired a total of 438 rounds, including some star shells, between 08:12 and 08:36 without hitting Admiral Hipper.

[18][15] As the convoy had been ordered to scatter after encountering Admiral Hipper, Bonaventure spent the next few days trying to locate the merchantmen, especially the troopship Empire Trooper.

The convoy steamed west when it departed on 6 January as a deception measure before turning eastward during the night and was well clear of Gibraltar when dawn broke the next morning.

After the aircraft carrier Ark Royal had flown off some torpedo bombers for Malta, Force H turned back and reinforced the convoy escort during the morning of 9 January.

[15] At 07:20 on 10 January the Italian torpedo boats Vega and Circe were simultaneously spotted by Bonaventure and the destroyer Jaguar about 12 nmi (22 km; 14 mi) off the island of Pantelleria despite the poor visibility.

The ship returned to Suda Bay on 8 February, making patrols in Greek waters and covering the occupation of Castelorizo (Operation Abstention) for the rest of the month.

Together with four destroyers, the cruiser formed the close escort for the convoy and were designated as Force C. Bonaventure was attacked without effect by a pair of German Junkers Ju 88 bombers on 21 March.