The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Captain William J. Wheeler, United States Coast Guard, for distinguished service in the line of his profession as Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. SENECA, engaged in the important, exacting and hazardous duty of transporting and escorting troops and supplies through waters infested with enemy submarines and mines, and especially for his prompt and judicious action upon two occasions of encounters with submarines, on 25 April 1918 and on 28 June 1918.