The Top Ender Magazine October November 2020 Edition

News
Posthumous VC for
Ordinary Seaman 'Teddy' Sheean
On 12 August 2020, His Excellency
General the Honourable David
Hurley AC DSC (Ret'd), Governor-
General of the Commonwealth
of Australia, with Chief of Navy
Vice Admiral Michael Noonan
AO, announced that Her Majesty,
Queen Elizabeth II had approved a
posthumous awarding of a Victoria
Cross, for Seaman Edward Sheean
of the Royal Australian Navy at
Government House, Canberra.
Ordinary Seaman Edward ‘Teddy’ Sheean who served on
HMAS Armidale was killed when the ship was attached
by a Japanese aerial attack. It has become on his ship has
become a well-known episode in Australian Second World
War lore. Sheean, his parents’ fourteenth child, was born at
Lower Barrington in Tasmania, on 28 December 1923, was
educated in a Catholic school at Latrobe also in Tasmania
before taking work on farms in the same area. He enlisted
in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve in April 1941 and
underwent initial training in Tasmania.
He began service as an Oerlikon anti-aircraft gunner on
HMAS Armidale, which escorted convoys us the east and
northern coasts. Then, in October 1942 the ship sailed for
Darwin, so that with two other vessels, she could evacuate 2/2
Independent Company, Portuguese civilians and Dutch troops
from Japanese-occupied Timor. The plan went wrong, and
Armidale was required to sail for Betano the following night.
Shortly before 2.00pm on 1 December 1942, Armidale, was
attacked by thirteen Japanese aircraft, but in spite of her captain
Lieutenant Commander David Richards’ rapid manoeuvring,
a torpedo struck her port side at 3.15pm and another soon
followed and then finally she was hit aft by a bomb.
Sheean helped to free a life raft, then rushed back to his
gun in spite of being wounded and strapped himself to it. He
managed to shoot down two aeroplanes and kept other aircraft
away from his mates in the water. He was seen still firing his
gun as Armidale finally sank. He was 18. Only 49 of the 149
men on board survived the attack and subsequent time on
rafts and in life boats.
He was Mentioned in Dispatches and although many considered
that his actions deserved the Victoria Cross he was not
recommended for one.
In 1999, a Collins Class submarine HMAS Sheean was
named after him – the only ship named after a sailor. Finally,
after a long-running campaign, and as the result of a third
examination of the evidence a review panel recommended that
he be awarded the VC. He was the first member of the Royal
Australian Navy to be awarded the highest award for valour in
Australia.
www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-11/teddy-sheeans-victoriacross-true-story-always-there/12543226
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