The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy and Marine Corps Medal to Captain Robert J. Barnes (MCSN: 0-7613), United States Marine Corps, for heroism in rescuing members of a flight crew from certain death by drowning on 2 March 1944. Captain Barnes was bivouacked at Cape Gloucester, New Britain, with a small echelon of his company approximately 400 yards from the scene of a plane crash in a swampy gully. Awakened by the crash, he immediately led a volunteer rescue party to the area and succeeded in effecting the rescue of nine members of the crew, in spite of the fact that the men were trapped in the gasoline-soaked wreckage of the plane. Two of the men were pinned face-down in a bog and would have drowned had it not been for the quick thinking of Captain Barnes. His heroic conduct was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.