Peter Tomich, a US citizen of Croatian origin, earned the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic actions on the battleship USS Utah on December 7, 1941.

The medal was received by retired Croatian army lieutenant colonel Srecko Herceg Tonic on behalf of the family at a ceremony held on board the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in the southern Adriatic port of Split.

According to the official citation quoted on the Medal of Honor website, Tomich, 48, who held the enlisted rank of chief watertender aboard the Utah, was on duty in a boiler room when the Japanese attacked.

"Although realizing that the ship was capsizing, as a result of enemy bombing and torpedoing, Tomich remained at his post in the engineering plant of the USS Utah, until he saw that all boilers were secured and all fireroom personnel had left their stations, and by so doing lost his own life," the citation read.

Tomich, who later had a US navy escort ship named after him, displayed "distinguished conduct in the line of his profession, and extraordinary courage and disregard of his own safety," the citation said.