"Voltaire" sailed for Bombay in June 1939 and docked in Southampton on 28 August. In October Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson in Wallsend started to convert her into an armed merchant cruiser. In January 1940 she was commissioned as HMS "Voltaire". She served in the Mediterranean until France capitulated in June 1940, after which she became a convoy escort in the North Atlantic, and was sunk in April 1941 by the "Thor".