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HMAS Shropshire Memorial Tree, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT
HMAS Shropshire Memorial Tree, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT In the gardens that surround the Australian War Memorial are a number of trees bearing a brass plaque that remembers a specific Army Unit, Airforce Group or a Naval Ship. One such tree was planted by the HMAS Shropshire Association, it too, bore a plaque. As the Victorian President of the Association I was recently contacted by the Director of the AWM, indicating that the current plaque had Philippines wrongly spelled, and that it was proposed that a new plaque would be made, and installed with our approval, and at the expense of the Australian War Memorial. My Committee was asked to give their approval in writing to this suggestion, we of course agreed, the old plaque stated that we had lost 6 members to the enemy, this was in fact not right, those 6 had died of natural causes during their time in the ship, and not as the result of any enemy action. On the new plaque we had that changed to read correctly. A copy of the new plaque is shown here. A further record for posterity of the service of a wonderful 8 inch cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy, and her crew. I am proud to say, " I saw service as part of the wartime crew in HMAS Shropshire."  |
