Navy Federal Credit Union

Awards Received

  • Navy and Marine Corps Medal

    Service:

    United States Navy

    Rank:

    Ensign

    Action Date:

    January 17, 1958

    The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy and Marine Corps Medal to Ensign Gerald L. Bryant (NSN: 3890720), United States Navy, for heroism while attached to the Boat Division at the Naval Air Station, Point Mugu, California, from 18 June to the present date. While serving as a crew member of LCU-1250 he displayed heroism in saving the life of a shipmate while his ship was broached on a beach at San Nicolas Island on 17 January 1958. The surf was extremely heavy with twelve-foot breakers, the LCU was being lifted about three feet and moved along the beach about fifteen feet with each breaker. During the course of salvage attempts s shot line from a tug landed across the LCU about twenty feet abaft the bow ramp. Since its location made it difficult to reach, two men who had been stationed on the beach ran into the surf in an attempt to recover the line. The first man, Seaman James E. Bannister, USM, was knocked form his feet by a breaker and washed beneath the hull of the LCU which had been lifted by the surge. Pinned beneath the hill, unconscious and completely immersed, Seaman Banister faced fatal injury or drowning. Without hesitation and heedless of the obvious danger to himself Ensign Bryant leaped from the LCU into the water and with the assistance of another member of the crew, who has hastened to assist from a position on the beach, he was successful in extricating Seaman Bannister and, with difficulty, moving him to a position of safety. His heroism in knowingly and without hesitation risking his own life in the face of the dangerous surf which could have washed him beneath the pounding hull was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.