The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Distinguished Service Medal to Captain Edward J. Steichen, United States Naval Reserve, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished service in a position of great responsibility to the Government of the United States as Commanding Officer of the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit under DCNO (Air) and later as Director of the Navy Photographic Institute during the period 26 February 1942 to the cessation of hostilities with Japan. Captain Steichen maintained the highest possible standards of excellence in navy photography for training the Navy’s flyers, for informing the public as to the progress of the war and for creating an invaluable historical record of our ships, planes and fighting men. In two tours of duty in the Pacific, one in 1943 aboard the U.S.S. LEXINGTON when she sustained a torpedo attack, and again in 1944 at Guam and Iwo Jima, he studied naval photography at close range.