Valor Friday

Teddy Sheean

Last week we looked at the heroism of Australian Richard Norden. He recently received a Victoria Cross, the highest award given to those in British or Commonwealth service. The actions for which he was awarded this in 2024 happened decades earlier in the jungles of Vietnam. I briefly mentioned that the Aussies had only once before given a heroic man a long-delayed posthumous VC, to Teddy Sheean. Today we’ll look at him.

Edward Sheean was born in Tasmania, on 28 December 1923. He was the youngest of a whopping fourteen children. His father James was a laborer, and I think it’s fair to say his mother Mary Jane was also, in the strictest meaning of the word, also a laborer. Teddy, as Edward was known, worked on farms after finishing his Catholic schooling.

With Australia being embroiled in the ongoing World War, Sheean enlisted into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in April 1941 when he was just 17. He followed in the footsteps of five of this older brothers (four in the Australian Army and one other in the RAN). Sheean then started his period of basic instruction and initial training as a sailor and anti-aircraft gunner.

Sheean’s first operational posting was on 11 May 1942 at the naval base HMAS Penguin in Sydney Harbor. Here he was berthed aboard HMAS Kuttabul, a former Sydney ferry requisitioned by the government for use as a barracks ship. Before the end of the month, the young seaman used some leave to return home.

While he was away, a Japanese midget sub attacked the moored HMAS Kuttabul and sank her on 31 May. Twenty one sailors asleep on the ship died in the attack, and 10 more were injured. This was a stark reminder of the danger he was facing as he would now head out into the fleet. Returning to Sydney 11 days after the sinking of Kuttabul, Sheean was assigned to the freshly commissioned HMAS Armidale (J240).

Armidale was a Bathurst-class corvette. Bathurst-class ships were an indigenous ship designed commissioned in the years immediately preceding the start of the war. The Royal Australian Navy wanted a small, fast ship that was easy to build and maintain, to engaging in anti-submarine and anti-mine operations. With the start of the war, the class of ships became a critical part of the RAN. As a demonstration of how quick they were to build, Armidale was laid down and commissioned into the fleet in just nine months. Before the end of the war, 60 Bathurst-class ships would be built, and they saw during the war with the Australian and Indian navies. Post-war they continued to serve in those navies as well as for Indonesia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Turkey, and Pakistan.

Armidale and her crew of 85 men and officers was immediately used to escort convoys from Australia to New Guinea. She did this through the summer of 1942 before getting assigned to minesweeping duties in October.

On 24 November 1942, Armidale was among several RAN ships sent to Timor to receive orders to evacuate men of the Australian Army’s 2/2nd Commando Squadron. This was an independent commando company, though oversized compared to most companies. The company had a nominal strength of 17 officers and 256 other ranks. They were to be evacuated along with about 150 Portuguese refugees.

The plan was for Armidale and two sister ships (also of corvette size) to make two trips each. The first would be the night of 30 November in to 1 December, where 50 fresh Dutch guerillas and supplies would be landed, and the civilians evacuated. They would return on the night of 4/5 December to evacuate the 2/2nd Commando Squadron.

On the day of the first planned operation, Armidale and her sister ship HMAS Castlemaine were forced to sail alone for Timor. The third ship had been late, but was going to meet them at the island. At 0900 on 30 November the two Australian ships were attacked by a lone enemy aircraft. Bombing and strafing them with gunfire, the two ships took evasive action and asked headquarters if they should continue, now that they had been discovered. The order was that they should. Friendly aircraft were promised to escort them.

Twice more formations of enemy aircraft attacked the two-ship convoy. First about midday, 14 enemy airships hit them, but were driven off by Bristol Beaufighters from Australia. Again at 1400 hours, they weathered another attack. So far neither ship sustained any damage or casualties, and they arrived in Timor’s Betano Bay at 0230 hours on 1 December. The third ship, HMAS Kuru, that was to meet them there was nowhere to be found.

Fearing that Kuru was at the bottom of the bay and they might be sailing into an ambush, the captains of Armidale and Castlmaine sailed south instead of into the bay, intending to return to Darwin, Australia. What they didn’t know was that Kuru had arrived, loaded evacuees (including one critically injured Australian) and sailed out of Betano about 0200 hours. Kuru’s skipper thought he had missed the other two ships completely.

About 59 nautical miles out of Betano, as daylight broke, the three Australian ships sighted each other and were reunited. The fog of war had lifted, and none of the sailors were any worse the wear for all of the night’s action.

Kuru commenced transferring her passengers to Castlemaine. Kuru was then ordered to immediately return to Betano Bay and finish the mission tonight. Castlemaine carried the first load of evacuees back to Australia, while Armidale would accompany Kuru. The two ships were to sail by different routes to Betano.

At 1300 hours on 1 December, Armidale spied five enemy dive bombers headed their way. Manning the guns, the crew of Armidale were able to damage two of them. The remaining enemy bombers loosed their loads wide of the ship as they attempted to evade the Aussies’ accurate fire.

Having been attacked for the fourth time in just two days, Armidale was in the open, alone, and the enemy knew where she was. An hour later, about 1400 hours, the enemy attacked the warship for a fifth and final time. This time, they brought a whole squadron’s worth of aircraft.

Five Japanese Zero fighters swooped onto Armidale, and drawing the ship’s gunfire, they created an opening in the ship’s defenses for nine torpedo bombers to let loose. At one point, one of the enemy torpedoes, dropped too late, whizzed right in front of the ship’s bridge as it sailed through the air.

At 1510 hours, Armidale was finally hit by the enemy. Twice in quick succession two torpedoes found thier mark. Both striking the port side, the first hit the mess deck, killing many of the soldiers Armidale was ferrying, and the second hit the engine room. They would be fatal blows.

Armidale was going down, and going down fast. The sailors and soldiers aboard ship started to jump overboard, grabbing life rafts and tossing them into the water. Seeing this, the Japanese Zeroes stopped strafing Armidale and began shooting at the men in the water.

Already wounded at least twice, Ordinary Seaman Sheean, helped to free a life raft, and then moved to the aft of Armidale. He was hit by two of the enemy fighter’s bullets. He took two 7.7mm shots to his chest and back. He kept going, finding his 20mm Oerlikon gun at the rear of the ship. He strapped himself into the anti-aircraft gun and began to shoot back at the Zero as he came back around for another strafing run on the shipwrecked men.

Sheean’s firing, as the ship rapidly sank into the water, shot down one of the Zeroes. The water rising to Sheean’s feet, he kept shooting. Two more Zeroes were damaged. Again and again they swung around to attack, and every time they did, there was Sheean’s 20mm fire to greet them. Because of this fire, the enemy was unable to take any more lives that day.

The ship continued sinking, but Sheean never left his gun. As long as the enemy remained in the sky, he would be shooting at them. The water rose up and up, but Sheean would not be deterred. Even after he and his gun were dragged under, survivors witnessed him still shooting, with tracers coming up out of the water and towards the enemy.

Sheean painting by Dale Marsh

Sheean, the farm boy from Tasmania, was only 18 when he went down fighting to the end and even a little longer.

About 149 men were aboard Armidale when she went down. One hundred of them perished in the initial attack or in the waters after abandoning ship. Among those few who survived, most of them credited Sheean with their survival.

During the attack a plane had been brought down and for this the credit went to Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean. Teddy died, but none of us who survived, I am sure, will ever forget his gallant deed … When the order ‘Abandon ship’ was given, he made for the side, only to be hit twice by the bullets of an attacking Zero. None of us will ever know what made him do it, but he went back to his gun, strapped himself in, and brought down a Jap plane, still firing as he disappeared beneath the waves.

– Ordinary Seaman Russel Caro

The survivors of the sinking were able to locate two of the ship’s boats, and made a raft from debris to keep everyone together. About midday on the 2nd of December, the captain, in one of the boats, broke with the rest of the survivors and made to row to Darwin and call in a rescue. It wasn’t until 5 December that the 22 men in that raft were spotted form the air. Upon learning there were other survivors waiting, search and rescue planes went out immediately. At about the same time, the second boat (with 29 men) decided to break with the makeshift raft (with 49 men on it), to also try to make for Darwin to call in a rescue.

A PBY Catalina finally spotted the raft and the boat on the 8th of December, but couldn’t land due to rough seas. They directed an RAN ship to the area. The crew of the Catalina estimated only about 20 men remaining on the makeshift raft. When the rescue ship arrived, they located the life boat, but the raft was never seen again. They searched for it until 13 December.

In the aftermath, Armidale’s skipper wrote up Sheean’s bravery. Lieutenant Commander David Richards gave Sheean a Mention in Despatches. This citation in orders to higher command is roughly analygous to an American Bronze Star Medal w/ “V”. As for why he didn’t get a higher award, at the time, only two British honors could be bestowed posthumously; a MiD and the Victoria Cross. For whatever reason, his actions didn’t seem to rate the VC, so he was given the next highest available honor. This discrepancy was fixed in the 70s, and now all British medals can be awarded posthumously.

For decades Sheean’s comrades hoped for a higher honor for him. He started to get more support in the 21st Century. In the 90s, Australia had created their own awards system, and this made it slighty easier to right the wrong. As his supporters noted, had Sheean survived, he might have been recommended for either the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal (which ranked immediately below the VC) or the Distinguished Service Medal (the third-level award) instead, but neither medal could be awarded posthumously in 1942.

Victoria Cross

Sheean’s deeds, which one observer compared to that of Kevin Wheatley. Finally in June 2020 the Australian Government recommended to the Queen that she award Sheean the VC for Australia. His was the first (and so far only) VC to a member of the RAN.

Category: Aussies, Historical, Navy, UK and Commonwealth Awards, Valor, We Remember