The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Distinguished Service Medal to Commander (MC) William T. Foley (NSN: 0-79275), United States Navy, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished service in a position of great responsibility to the Government of the United States as Camp Commander and the only Medical Officer in Japanese Prisoner of War Camp No. 11, Sendai, Japan, from December 1941 until liberation by American forces. Commander Foley assumed the two-fold responsibility of providing food and administering to medical needs. With only rudimentary equipment and inadequate medical supplies, he worked to control epidemics and treated sufferers for malnutrition and vitamin deficiency. He personally performed 160 emergency surgical operations and maintained such a high standard of physical well-being among his fellow prisoners that only 26 men out of 1,200 confined were lost during approximately three and one half years of imprisonment.