The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy and Marine Corps Medal to Lieutenant Commander Edward H. Dench, Jr., United States Navy, for heroism while serving at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Hawaiian Area, Barking Sands, Hawaii on 21 July 1976. Lieutenant Commander Dench was the doctor on board a Sikorsky UH-3A helicopter during the successful rescue of a Marine Corporal who had fallen two hundred feet down the cliffs of the Kalalau Valley and was lodged under a dead tree stump on a ledge with a seventy degree slope. With complete disregard for his own safety and fully aware of the personal dangers involved, Lieutenant Commander Dench unhesitatingly volunteered to be lowered onto the narrow ledge to aid the victim. Once on the ledge, he made preliminary examinations and requested a stokes litter, medical supplies, and assistance from the rescue crewman. He then applied splints, intravenous fluids, basic first aid, and assisted the rescue crewman in strapping the survivor into the stokes litter and dragging the litter thirty yards across the narrow ledge to a position where the helicopter could effect the rescue. Lieutenant Commander Dench’s courage and prompt actions in the face of great personal risk undoubtedly prevented the victim from dying due to exposure and blood loss and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.