The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Lieutenant Leonard B. Smith, United States Navy, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as a volunteer observer attached to the R.A.F. during an aerial search for the German pocket battleship BISMARK on 26 May 1941. Lieutenant Smith kept a vigilant lookout for seven hours before sighting the PRINZ EUGENE in the water below. While ascending into the clouds, his PBY plane was hit by shrapnel from the hitherto unseen BISMARK. For four hours thereafter Lieutenant Smith and the British crew remained above the BISMARK and directed air and surface forces in the attack which sank the German warship.