The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy and Marine Corps Medal to Officer’s Cook Third Class Augustus Wilson, United States Navy, for distinguished heroism at the risk of life not involving conflict with an armed enemy, as a member of the volunteer salvage party which returned aboard the Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. YORKTOWN (CV-5), in an attempt to bring her into port after the Battle of Midway on 6 June 1944. While preparing for subsistence of the party on board, Officer’s Cook Third Class Wilson, displaying cool courage at great personal risk, entered and brought stores from compartments adjacent to those which had been damaged and flooded. That afternoon, after the YORKTOWN had been struck by enemy torpedoes and the U.S.S. HAMMANN had been sunk alongside, he helped rescue persons struggling in the water, by lowering lines and material. When supplies on hand were exhausted, he went back to the dark interior of the ship, which was in a perilous condition by that time, brought mattresses and life preservers from the officers’ staterooms below decks and tossed them to the drowning men. Later he went on precarious searches for wounded and was of great assistance in lowering the injured on a tug alongside.