The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy and Marine Corps Medal to Coxswain John D. Massman, United States Coast Guard, for heroic conduct while attached to the Coast Guard Patrol Base, Seattle, in assisting the City Fire Department in rescuing four men during a serious fire in the Frye and Company plant on 18 February 1943. Coxswain Massman as a member of a fire rescue party entered the ruins and started searching for bodies. When five city firemen were overcome by refrigerant gas, Coxswain Massman at great risk of his life dauntlessly followed their hose into the gas-filled room where they lay and carried out four of the unconscious men. On the fifth trip Coxswain Massman himself was overcome but was rescued.