The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to First Lieutenant Benjamin W. Atkinson (MCSN: 0-30), United States Marine Corps, for distinguished service in the line of his profession as commander of a patrol of the Headquarters Company, Second Battalion, Eleventh Regiment, operating in the vicinity of Trinidad, Nicaragua, on April third and fourth, 1928. While engaged in a night march upon a mission assigned to investigate reports of bandit activities in the vicinity of Trinidad, the patrol under command of Lieutenant Atkinson, who was with the point of the patrol at the time of the attack, maintained perfect control of his men and directed his patrol with such military ability when subjected to a surprise night attack by a numerically superior forces as to outflank the enemy and after approximately one and one-half hours’ engagement put them to rout, thereby displaying excellent judgment, initiative, and soldierly qualities of the highest order.