Description
Title: Porthole Mk II 1966 (HMAS Shropshire)
Author: H.M.A.S. Canberra-Shropshire Association Committee
Condition: Near Mint
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 1966
ISBN: N/A
Cover: Hard Cover without Dust Jacket – 88 pages
Comments: The detailed history of HMAS Shropshire during World War II – now a very scarce book. Includes a complete listing of ship’s company plus honours and awards.
HMS Shropshire (later HMAS Shropshire) was a Royal Navy (RN) heavy cruiser of the London sub-class of County class cruisers. She is the only ship to have been named after Shropshire, England.
Completed in 1929, Shropshire served with the RN until 1942, when she was transferred to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) following the loss of sister ship HMAS Canberra. Commissioned as HMAS Shropshire, the ship remained in RAN service until 1949, and was sold for scrap in 1954.
Following the loss of the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra, another County class cruiser, during the Battle of Savo Island on 9 August 1942 the British Government approved the transfer of Shropshire to Australia as a replacement. She was recalled from the South Atlantic and paid off at His Majesty’s Dockyard Chatham in December 1942, to refit for Australian service.
She was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy on 20 April 1943 at HM Dockyard Chatham as HMAS Shropshire. She might have been renamed HMAS Canberra but for the fact that the United States had renamed one of their ships as the USS Canberra in tribute.
She subsequently saw action during the Battle of Surigao Strait and the Battle of Lingayen Gulf. Shropshire was present at Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945 for the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender.
Shropshire remained in service until paid off to reserve on 10 November 1949. She was sold as scrap on 16 July 1954, to Thomas W. Ward Limited of Sheffield in England on behalf of the British Iron and Steel Corporation. Shropshire was towed from Sydney by the Dutch tug Oostzee in October 1954. She arrived at the Dalmuir yard of the shipbreakers Arnott Young on 20 January 1955.
