The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to First Lieutenant (Air Service) Allan Francis Bonnalie, United States Army Air Service, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Signal Reserve, Royal Air Force (Attached), U.S. Army Air Service, A.E.F., near Bruges, Belgium. On 13 August 1918, First Lieutenant Bonnalie led two other machines on a long photographic reconnaissance. In spite of the presence of numerous enemy aircraft, they were able to take all the photographs required, but were attacked by six Fokker biplanes. During the combat Lieutenant Bonnalie saw that one of his accompanying machines was in difficulty and that an enemy airplane was nearly on its tail. He at once broke off combat with the enemy with whom he was engaged and dived to the assistance of the machine in trouble. He drove off the enemy plane, regardless of the bullets which were ripping up his own machine. Eventually, however, his tail planes and his elevator wires were shot away and his machine began to fall in side slips. Lieutenant Bonnalie managed to keep his machine facing toward the British lines by means of the rudder control, while his observer and the third machine drove off the enemy aircraft, which was still attacking. In its damaged condition Lieutenant Bonnalie’s machine was tail heavy, and he therefore had his observer leave his cockpit and lie out along the cowl in front of the pilot. In this manner he re-crossed the British trenches at a low altitude and righted his machine sufficiently to avoid a fatal crash. Had it not been for the gallantry of Lieutenant Bonnalie the injured machine to whose assistance he went would have fallen into enemy territory, as the pilot had been wounded and its observer killed. Lieutenant Bonnalie’s own machine was riddled with bullets and it was a marvelous performance to bring it safely to the ground.