The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Bronze Star Medal to Master Sergeant Francis R. Kimball, United States Army, for meritorious service during the Central Burma Campaign from April 1944 to June 1945 with the 96th Signal Battalion. As Chief Code Clerk in the Signal Center, he was charged with the responsibility for encoding and decoding classified messages and with the cryptographic security of such traffic, as well as the safeguarding of theater records of cryptographic material. Master Sergeant Kimball displayed a high sense of responsibility in maintaining security, and developed several ingenious procedures for processing this type of traffic which served to expedite the handling of high level communications in the Theater.