"Fiji", the only ship of the Royal Navy to be named after the Crown colony of Fiji, was laid down by John Brown &amp; Company at their Clydebank shipyard on 30 March 1938. The ship was launched on 31 May 1939 and completed on 5 May 1940. She was the first of the Fiji class to enter service (Royal Navy classes were generally named after the lead ship of a class). She was initially assigned to the Home Fleet. On 31 August 1940 she sailed for the African Atlantic coast to take part in Operation Menace, the attack on Dakar, but before she could join the taskforce, "Fiji" was damaged by a torpedo from the on 1 September and had to return to Britain for repairs, which lasted for the next six months. The torpedo hit abreast the forward boiler room and most of the force of the detonation escaped up the forward funnel, but the boiler room and an adjacent compartment flooded, reducing her speed to . The flooding gave her a list to port; to counter it the ammunition from the forward turrets was thrown overboard and the portside torpedoes were ejected over the side. While under repair was fitted with a Type 284 gunnery radar and another pair of quadruple Vickers 0.50-inch AA machineguns were added.