HMS York was the first of two York-class heavy cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the late 1920s, the sister ship being HMS Exeter. She mostly served on the North America and West Indies Station before World War II. Early in the war the ship escorted convoys in the Atlantic, participated in the Norwegian Campaign in 1940 and then transferred to the Mediterranean. After escorting convoys and the larger ships of the Mediterranean Fleet, she was wrecked in an attack by Italian explosive motorboats of the 10th Flotilla MAS at Suda Bay, Crete in March 1941. The wreck was salvaged in 1952 and scrapped in Bari.