The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Bronze Star Medal to Corporal Frank E. Williams, United States Marine Corps, for heroic achievement in action while serving with the machine gun platoon of an assault rifle company in action against Japanese forces on Peleliu Island, Palau Group, on 16 September 1944. After leading his machine gun section over fourteen hundred yards of open airfield, Corporal Williams held them up in the brush on the north-eastern edge of the airfield, and set his guns up for protection of the riflemen to whom he was attached. When he noticed riflemen to his right front being harassed by Japanese sniper fire from a trench a few yards from his position, he voluntarily, without regard for his own safety, went forward with his sub-machine gun and killed three of the enemy. His courageous act was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.