The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Lieutenant Kurt Vincent Anderson (NSN: 0-666999), United States Naval Reserve, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight as the pilot of an A-1H aircraft while attached to Attack Squadron ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FIVE (VA-145), a unit of Attack Carrier Air Wing FOURTEEN, embarked in U.S.S. RANGER (CVA-61) during a reprisal attack against North Vietnam on 10 February 1966. Lieutenant Anderson, as wingman in a flight of two A-1H aircraft, attacked a heavily defended highway bridge on a primary line of communications. In spite of intense anti-aircraft fire, Lieutenant Anderson scored two direct hits on the bridge causing it to collapse into the river, thereby impeding the flow of waterborne supplies and highway traffic. Although hampered by low clouds and reduced visibility, the flight then conducted armed reconnaissance along an assigned route through mountainous terrain. They located a truck convoy and, in the face of intense small arms fire, executed repeated bombing, rocket and strafing attacks. Lieutenant Anderson, in a calm display of expert weapons deliver, destroyed four of the trucks, damaged seven others, and accounted for an undetermined number of personnel casualties. As a result of his aggressive and skillful weapons deliver an enemy convoy was virtually destroyed and movement of vital supplies along the two lines of communication was severely impeded. Lieutenant Anderson’s courageous performance in adverse weather and under hostile fire was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.