The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Lieutenant Richard W. Hauschildt, United States Coast Guard, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight on the morning of 2 September 1977 while serving as pilot and aircraft commander of Coast Guard HH-52A 1370 helicopter engaged in the perilous rescue of two workers who had become trapped inside a 650-foot smokestack, 250 feet from the top, at a power plant in Portage, Wisconsin. Dispatched from Air Station Chicago, Lieutenant Hauschildt piloted the aircraft to the scene despite darkness, low ceilings and marginal visibility. Upon arrival, Lieutenant Hauschildt conferred with the supervisory personnel at the plant and decided to utilize a steel cage to hoist the two men to safety. To accomplish this, he conducted two flights to the top of the smokestack to deliver the cage, 250 feet of cable and two workers to a catwalk 15 feet below the lip of the stack. The workers connected the cable to the cage and lowered it into the stack where one of the hapless men entered it. Then, Lieutenant Hauschildt hovered the helicopter over the stack and when the hoist hook was attached to the cable, he began a slow vertical ascent, despite 20 to 30-knot winds, to raise the man in the protective cage out of the stack. After climbing only 30 feet, he lost sight of the stack and relied on lights 700 feet below him for visual reference points, and as the cage cleared the top of the stack, the helicopter entered the clouds. With assistance from the ground, Lieutenant Hauschildt maneuvered the aircraft to an open area and slowly lowered the cage to safety. After a six-hour wait for the weather to clear, Lieutenant Hauschildt hoisted the second man from the stack in the same manner. Lieutenant Hauschildt’s innovative actions, expert aeronautical skill and valor throughout this rescue mission resulted in the successful rescue of the two men. His courage, sound judgment, and unwavering devotion to duty are most heartily commended and are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Coast Guard.