AWARDED DFC: 1
CONFLICT/SPACE FLIGHT/EVENT:  WWII
MODEL:  B-24

Citation:  1.) The President of the United States takes great pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to First Lieutenant Francis M. Lambert for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight over Tarakan, Borneo, Netherlands East Indies, on 8 April 1945. Lieutenant Lambert was the Pilot of a B-24 photo-reconnaissance aircraft dispatched to obtain photographs of the beach, harbor installations, and enemy gun positions in this area. Flying through concentrated anti-aircraft and small arms fire, which scored numerous hits on the airplane, he descended to the required altitude of 650 feet and flew within 300 yards of hostile gun emplacements. As the pictures were being taken, fire from the B-24 silenced an anti-aircraft gun and strafed enemy vessels and the dock area. When the first run was completed, Lieutenant Lambert, disregarding the fact that his airplane was damaged and enemy fire was constant, climbed to 10,000 feet, where the photographers took additional pictures needed for large-scale operations then being planned. The outstanding courage and devotion to duty displayed by Lieutenant Lambert during this flight are in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Army Air Forces.