The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross (Posthumously) to First Lieutenant (Infantry) Kenneth P. French (ASN: 0-423365), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism while serving with an Infantry Company of the 161st Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, while leading a combined tank and infantry assault on New Georgia, Solomon Islands, on 26 July 1943, and softening resistance on a Japanese-held hill for later attacks. Although he had been wounded while reconnoitering the nest of pillboxes, machine gun and rifle pits, Lieutenant French volunteered to ride in the lead tank and guide the attack. Under intense close-range fire, he repeatedly exposed himself in the open turret or dismounted to direct the tank column and infantry in assaults on centers of resistance. Once he dismounted in the midst of heavy caliber fire to learn the identity of troops he saw moving in the brush and, finding that they were Japanese, returned to the tank’s 37-mm. gun and turned it on twenty of the enemy. When his tank was drawing heavy fire from machine guns, he dismounted again and mapped a plan of attack with a noncommissioned officer. In the five-hour battle, his calm appraisal and forceful action was responsible for eliminating thirteen automatic weapons positions and knocking two 75-mm. guns out of action. He personally accounted for the destruction of five pillboxes. Lieutenant French was killed in a later attack on 28 July, the day before the hill was captured.