The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Legion of Merit with Combat “V” to Captain Charles Ward Thomas, United States Coast Guard, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States as Commander of a Greenland Patrol task unit and Commanding Officer of a Coast Guard ice breaker during the fall of 1944. Captain Thomas, operating north of the Arctic Circle, inflicted severe damage on enemy installations and outposts in Northeast Greenland . He landed a force, which destroyed a Nazi weather station and later captured an enemy armed trawler. [Captain Thomas is authorized to wear the Combat “V”.]