The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Captain Byron F. Johnson (MCSN: 0-1801), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight while attached to the Second Brigade, United States Marine Corps, operating in the Republic of Nicaragua. On the morning of 19 June 1930, Captain Johnson, while in command of a two-plane patrol, encountered and developed a hostile group of bandits, variously estimated at from two hundred to six hundred, under Sandino, on Saraguasa Mountain; with courage, coolness and skill he attacked with bombs and machine gun fire, and though his airplane was struck by six bullets and the leading edge of the lower wind of his plane crushed in by contact with a buzzard, he nevertheless, at great personal risk, over perilous jungle and under constant enemy rifle and machine gun fire, continued the attack until his ammunition was exhausted. Again on the afternoon of the same day he returned in a six plane patrol to the same place, where, though his plane was struck with four bullets, he continued the assault under constant hostile fire for an hour and twenty minutes. As a result of these contacts the bandits suffered many casualties, were forced to retire and organized banditry was dealt a severe and telling blow.