The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Lieutenant, Junior Grade Conard Elliott (NSN: 0-251061), United States Naval Reserve, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as Pilot of a carrier-based Fighter Plane in action against enemy forces in the Mariana Islands. Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Elliott pressed home an accurate, powerful bombing and strafing attack on a valuable enemy convoy, scoring a near miss on a cargo ship and setting a destroyer on fire. When his small flight engaged a numerically superior force over Iwo Jima he personally accounted for one of 17 Japanese planes destroyed by his formation.