Push to honour War hero Teddy Sheean with VC Award
I want you to think today about a bloke called Teddy Sheean.
He was killed during the Second World War and he died a hero.
It was late in November 1942. He was an anti aircraft gunner on the Armidale, the HMAS Armidale.
PLAY: Garry Ivory, nephew of Teddy Sheean with Neil Mitchell
About 100 kilometres out of Darwin, the Japanese planes attacked. The ship was sunk, Teddy Sheean was wounded, so badly wounded he could barely stand so he strapped himself to his anti-aircraft gun and kept firing.
He literally kept firing even as the ship went under water and took out several Japanese planes along the way.
100 men on the ship died that day.
Teddy died on December 1, 1942. He was 18-years-old.
There has been a campaign to award Teddy Sheean a retrospective VC Award.
No sailor has ever been awarded the VC in Australia.
There were ten others on a list for consideration, including the famous John Simpson, as in Simpson and his donkey from Gallipoli.
Famous image of Gallipoli hero John Simpson and his donkey. RIGHT: Teddy Sheean
Late last night a government committee reported on this.
They had been considering whether to award VC's retrospectively.
They decided against it and presented a 500 page report.
My instinct is that the decision is right, but tough on families.
I don’t doubt Teddy Sheean deserved the highest recongition but retrospective VCs run the risk of politicising them, getting the politicians involved, and that potentially demeans them.
Still, many disagree with me.
Neil Mitchell is one of Australia’s most experienced journalists. He sets the Melbourne news agenda every day from 8:30am to 12pm.