The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 2, 1926, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Edward O. Hiatt, United States Army Air Forces, for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight on 5 May 1945. These individuals, as members of the combat crew of a B-29 type aircraft based in the Mariana Islands, skillfully performed their assigned crew duties to enable a devastating bombardment of the Hiro naval aircraft factory at Kure, Japan. Despite a weather front en route, they accomplished an excellent approach to the target. Flying their airplanes through intense accurate antiaircraft fire into the bomb run they released their projectiles to secure hits within 1000 feet of the aiming point. Reconnaissance photographs revealed that eighty-five percent of the target had been destroyed. The exceptional airmanship and outstanding devotion to duty demonstrated by these crewmembers, which have completed over twenty-one combat sorties, reflect the highest credit on themselves and the Army Air Force.