be renamed Canberra. However, around the same time, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose to commemorate the Australian warship's loss by renaming the under-construction Pittsburgh as . The duplication of ship names with the United States Navy was against RAN policy, and it was initially felt that Australia had a greater claim to the name. Protests in favour of retaining Shropshires original name were received from the British elements of the ship's company, who felt that renaming a ship after one that had recently been sunk was inviting bad luck, and from citizens of the ship's namesake, which had adopted the cruiser in a Warship Week earlier that year, and thought that Shropshires history and links to the community were being discarded without thought. One letter proposed, that the ship be named "HMAS Canberra (the gift of HMS) Shropshire" in order to retain the old name. The Australian government decided to retain Shropshires old name after learning that the US offer had come directly from President Roosevelt. Shropshire underwent refit at Chatham from December 1942 until 20 June 1943. Sources differ on the date of commissioning: although the commissioning ceremony was performed on 20 April, Captain John Augustine Collins successfully argued to have the ship recognised administratively as a commissioned Australian warship from 17 April, in order to keep Australian personnel (arriving that day) away from the RN rum issue. The refit was not completed until 25 June. RAN service Shropshire left the United Kingdom in August, as part of the escort for a convoy to Gibraltar. After this, she continued on to Australia, and arrived in Sydney on 2 October. At the end of the month, she joined Task Force 74 at Brisbane, and supported the amphibious landings at Arawe and Cape Gloucester during December. In March 1944, Shropshire was involved in the Admiralty Islands campaign. During April, the cruiser participated in the landing at Hollandia. In May, while operating in the Wakde-Sarmi-Biak area, a bomb was accidentally dropped by a United States aircraft between Shropshire and . Although the bomb missed both ships and appeared to cause no damage, the cruiser's engines began to malfunction four days later, and Shropshire returned to Australia for repairs. The ship returned to service on 12 July, and provided naval gunfire support for operations in Aitape and Cape Sansapore during July and August, Morotai in September, and Leyte Gulf in early