The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy and Marine Corps Medal to Lieutenant Commander (MC) Francis M. Highly, Jr., United States Navy, for heroic conduct on 17 November 1962 while serving at the Air Crew Equipment Laboratory, Naval Air Engineering Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a flight surgeon and inside supervisor/observer on a 14-day confinement run conducted in the Bioastronautical Test Facility to determine the effects of acceleration and prolonged exposure to 100 per cent oxygen at a simulated altitude of 27,000 feet as applicable to National Aeronautics and Space Administration Project GEMINI. When a fire broke out in the lower bunk area of the Bioastronautical Test Facility and quickly spread to the clothing of the test subjects, Lieutenant Commander Highly, disregarding his own flaming clothing, attempted to extinguish the fire which had enveloped his comrades. He then sounded the alarm to the outside observers and operators and directed emergency evacuation of the subjects from the test facility, thereby averting what could have been a much greater accident.