- Period:
- Second World War (1939-1945)
- Rank:
- Second Officer
- Unit:
- s.s. Tewkesbury, British Merchant Navy
- Awarded on:
- October 7th, 1941
Citation:
"For brave conduct when their ship was attacked by enemy aircraft."
On 1 March 1941, whilst his ship was off Aberdeen in convoy, it came under attack by three German bombers. His ship shot one down, but was struck by a 550lb bomb that penetrated deep into the engine-room, but did not explode. With the ship's engine running beneath them, De Neumann and the Second Engineer manoeuvred the bomb up to the boat deck, a vertical lift of more than forty feet, and then over the side where it exploded.