The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to First Sergeant Clyde R. Darrah (MCSN: 175075), United States Marine Corps, for distinguished service in the line of his profession as commander of a patrol of the Guardia Nacional, operating in the vicinity of Moss Farm, Nicaragua, on April 11 – 12, 1931. Having succeeded to the command of the 9th Company, Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua, at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, by the death of his commanding officer, Captain Harlen Pefley, U.S. Marine Corps, killed in combat on 11 April 1931, First Sergeant Darrah proceeded immediately thereafter by special train in command of a combat patrol of the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua to Moss Farm, where he aggressively attacked the main body of the well-armed, thoroughly organized and numerically superior bandit force, which was then engaged in ruthlessly burning property and mercilessly killing non-combatants, in their march on Puerto Cabezas, under the personal leadership of Pedro Blandon, the Sandino-appointed jefe of the Atlantic coast bandit expedition. After twenty-four hours of engagement with the enemy, First Sergeant Darrah so skillfully and efficiently interposed his force between the bandit groups, on their route of march, and Puerto Cabezas, that the threatened invasion was halted and the bandits were compelled to fall back to the north and retire to Logtown. On the following day, 13 April 1931, First Sergeant Darrah, in an outstanding display of military leadership, courage, coolness under fire, prompt execution of the orders of his commanding officer during combat at close quarters, and by personally inflicting severe losses on the enemy with machine gun fire in the battle of Logtown, contributed in the greatest degree to the complete defeat of the bandits and to the death of the notorious bandit jefe, Pedro Blandon.