Sydney (CNN) His shipmates said after the battle that they could see the bullets from the teenager's machine gun whizzing up through the water as he went down with his ship, firing to the last. Military history is filled with tales of heroism and self-sacrifice, but that of Australian Edward "Teddy" Sheean stands out among them. And on Wednesday, almost 78 years after the then 18-year-old sailor provided cover for his comrades to escape the Japanese planes overhead, Sheean was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the British Commonwealth's highest honor for military valor. A painting from the Australian War Memorial depicts the figure of Ordinary Seaman Edward Sheean, a wound on his right thigh, firing an Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun at Japanese bombers on December 1, 1942. According to the records of the Australian War Memorial (AWM), Sheean's ship was spotted by Japanese reconnaissance planes when it left Darwin on November 29.

Source: CNN August 13, 2020 08:26 UTC