What could the Royal Navy do with a captured Pola?

How quickly could a captured Zara or Pola enter Royal Navy service?

A captured ship would probably need to go to India for British systems and might then join the Eastern Fleet, where Japanese action could determine its fate.

Capture would not make Pola immediately available for operations. The surviving cruiser would probably have to reach India for repairs and conversion to British equipment and procedures. That work would place it naturally within the Eastern Fleet rather than quickly returning it to Mediterranean combat. Japanese forces, rather than Italy, might then become the ship's principal danger.