The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Boatswain’s Mate First Class Howard Gust Fox (NSN: 9551429), United States Navy, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity while serving with River Patrol Section 531 and friendly foreign forces in combat operations against the Communist insurgent forces on the Mekong River, Republic of Vietnam. On the evening of 28 December 1966, Petty Officer Fox was the Patrol Officer for PBRs 101 and 107 conducting a combat patrol on the Ham Luong River, 15 miles southwest of My Tho, Republic of Vietnam. While the patrol was en route to its assigned patrol area, he received intelligence information that the Viet Cong would attempt to cross the river during the night. Petty Officer Fox skillfully disposed his patrol across the path of the expected enemy crossing. Five minutes later he sighted a sampan with nine occupants crossing the river from south to north. He ordered his patrol to continue to drift silently to allow the sampan to commit itself to the river crossing, away from the safety of the river banks. Petty Officer Fox repeatedly illuminated the sampan while hailing it in Vietnamese to stop. When it failed to heed his warnings, he expertly maneuvered his fast craft to within 50 yards of the evading enemy. At this point the enemy soldiers in the sampan initiated hostile fire, supported by an intense barrage from a dozen enemy positions on the river bank. With extraordinary self control and presence of mind in the midst of the fierce cross-fire, Petty Officer Fox ordered his cover boat to suppress the Viet Cong river bank entrenchments while he engaged the sampan. With obvious calm and swift decisiveness, Petty Officer Fox promptly brought his PBR about so that all its guns could bear against the sampan, and discharged a devastating barrage of machine gun fire that instantly killed all nine of the Viet Cong in the sampan. When the enemy shore entrenchments increased their fire, he disengaged from the sampan and repeatedly led his patrol against the intense fire to press home his attack on the Viet Cong positions. He pinpointed the enemy positions for his machine gunners by using his M-16 rifle with tracers. The two enemy automatic weapons positions were knocked out but the intense sniper fire persisted. Petty Officer Fox maneuvered back to the drifting sampan, and despite the great hazards involved under the continuing enemy fire, armed himself with M-16 rifle and firing from a highly vulnerable location, covered one of his crew members who boarded the sampan to salvage its contents. The enemy fire from the river bank steadily increased in tempo but Petty Officer Fox continued to direct his crew in returning fire. He successfully extricated his patrol from the hail of sniper fire with the captured sampan and brought it intact into Ben Tre. The results of Petty Officer Fox’s interdiction included the capture of nine rifles, four hand grenades, 247 rounds of ammunition, miscellaneous enemy uniforms and personal papers. By his aggressive leadership, gallant display of extraordinary courage and loyal devotion to duty in the face of great personal risk, Petty Officer Fox upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.