No-one will ever know what made him do it.
Teddy Sheean was part of the evacuation of his warship, the corvette Armidale sinking fast while around it swarmed Japanese aircraft, shooting with abandon. Teddy turned back to his gun, an Oerlikon 20mm anti-aircraft cannon with a broad leather strap to secure the gunner.
He began firing...a courageous Tasmanian determined to do his best to save his mates and his ship. By 2020, no member of the Royal Australian Navy has ever been awarded a Victoria Cross. Of the 100 by 2016 awarded to Australians, 96 were to the Army and four awarded to the Royal Australian Air Force.
It was not from lack of bravery that this unjust situation arose. It derived from substantial unfairness. In World War I and II, the RAN, unlike their counterparts in the Army and Air Force, had to apply through Britain’s Royal Navy for any such award to be made.
Teddy Sheean VC tells more than his story, and how he was treated unjustly. It reveals the secret engagement Teddy Sheean kept concealed from his family.
It reveals the reverse of what other writers have suggested: the Royal Australian Navy was proud of Armidale and her fight, and did not cover up her loss. It dispenses with a myth that a submarine from the Imperial Japanese Navy massacred survivors.
Teddy Sheean VC focuses on a naval sailor who should have received a VC – and who then, nearly eight decades after his death, was given the highest honour.
Non-fiction, Military History
About The Author
Military historian; public speaker, author of 25 books, and a retired naval officer, Dr Tom Lewis received the Order of Australian Medal (OAM) for services to naval history.
He served in the Iraq War in 2006 as an Intelligence analyst, and also in East Timor. He has worked as a divemaster, high school teacher, and journalist.
Tom is an expert on World War II, especially in the Pacific, but has also written in areas including medieval battle, and the reality of battlefield behaviour.
His latest books are Cyclone Warriors – the Armed Forces in Cyclone Tracy; The Secret Submarine, revealing the RAAF’s sinking of the Japanese I-178 off Sydney in 1943, and Australia’s Coastal War, which brings together all of the submarine, surface, and air attacks around WWII Australia.
The Sinking of HMAS Sydney has just won the 2024 Australian Naval Institute’s Commodore Sam Bateman Book Prize.
