The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross (Posthumously) to Lieutenant Commander Claude David Wilson, Jr., United States Navy, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight on 11 November 1966, while conducting a missile attack on a large anti-aircraft artillery emplacement in North Vietnam. As Wingman in a flight of two light aircraft assigned as anti-aircraft suppressors supporting a large air wing strike on railyards at Ninh Binh, he made an independent run on one of two eight-gun anti-aircraft batteries and several smaller emplacements, which were firing point-blank into the bomber group. He destroyed the target with a direct hit on an air-to-ground missile.