The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Gunnery Sergeant Millard T. Shepard (MCSN: 0-5591/155405), United States Marine Corps, for distinguished service in the line of his profession from 4 December 1927 to 25 March 1929 as an airplane pilot attached to the Second Brigade, U.S. Marine Corps operating in Nicaragua. During this period Gunnery Sergeant Millard T. Shepard, U.S. Marine Corps piloted many different types of airplanes engaged in transporting passengers, including sick, wounded, civilians and prisoners, and freight. Flights were made daily over rugged, mountainous and dense tropical jungle country where a forced landing meant almost certain death and often through heavy tropical storms, Gunnery Sergeant Shepard displayed marked skill, ability and devotion to duty as a pilot under the most trying and hazardous conditions as a result of which all of his flights were successfully completed without accident.