The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Sergeant Donald L. Dillard (MCSN: 300043), United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity while serving with Company A, First Battalion, Seventh Marines, FIRST Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Peleliu, Palau Islands, on 15 September 1944. When a hostile machine gun located in a pillbox on the beach fired at his amphibian tractor during its landing, Sergeant Dillard seized an unmanned machine gun and returned effective fire which silenced the enemy weapon. Reaching the beach, he observed that the hostile gun was again firing on succeeding waves of landing parties and, armed with grenades and an automatic weapon, attacked the pillbox, destroyed the machine gun and annihilated its crew. His initiative, skill and coolness under fire were contributing factors in the successful landing of subsequent waves of Marines and reflect great credit on Sergeant Dillard and the United States Naval Service.