The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Distinguished Service Medal to Commander Guy Erwin Davis, United States Navy, for exceptionally courageous and meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility while serving as commander of a patrol unit operating against enemy submarines on the United States Atlantic coast. A leak having been started in the battery compartment of the N-5, one of the submarines of the patrol unit, which threatened to put the submarine out of action through the flooding of the battery and the development of chlorine gas, Commander Davis entered the flooded compartment in company with Lieutenant Walter Siebert and for four hours those two officers alternated at lying on their backs in the water and calking the leaking seams, while the crew of the boat, by bailing, succeeded in keeping the water just below the top of the battery. The boat was tested by submerging to 40 feet, and some of the calking having been blown out from the seams, the operation of calking was repeated by the same officers. As a result of their action, the boat was enabled to keep at sea for 18 days more and to carry out the orders under which the unit was acting, for the protection of the coasts and shipping of the United States. On 28 November 1917, as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. WAKIVA, Commander Davis engaged and destroyed an enemy submarine which attempted to attack the convoy escorted by the WAKIVA.