Sinking of Armidale

1 December 1942, Timor Sea, south of Betano, Portuguese Timor

Japanese success; Armidale sunk

Since the Japanese took Timor in February 1942 a few hundred Australian commandos had fought on in the hills of Portuguese Timor, supplied by small ships from Darwin; the destroyer Voyager had been wrecked trying in September. At the end of November the corvettes Armidale and Castlemaine and the patrol boat Kuru were sent to take off the worn-out 2/2nd Independent Company, Portuguese civilians and Dutch troops, and to land fresh Dutch soldiers. Japanese aircraft found them, and on 1 December nine torpedo bombers and fighters caught Armidale on her own. Two torpedoes hit her and she sank in minutes. As the Zeros strafed the men in the water, the wounded eighteen-year-old Ordinary Seaman Teddy Sheean strapped himself into his Oerlikon and kept firing until the ship took him down. About 100 men died, most of them Dutch soldiers. Sheean was awarded the Victoria Cross in 2020.