AWARDED DFC: 1
CONFLICT/SPACE FLIGHT/EVENT:  WWII
MODEL:  B-26

Citation:  1.) The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross (proposed citation) to 1st Lt. Irvin J. Loffler, 1st Pathfinder Squadron (M) Provisional. for heroism and extraordinary achievement while participating as a navigator of a PFF aircraft on a vital mission inside Germany, on 23 December 1944. On that day Lt. Loeffler had already completed a most hazardous mission successfully and was called upon at the last moment, without sufficient time for briefing, to navigate the PFF aircraft a second time the same day. On this mission Lt Loeffler's aircraft received damaging direct hits which made all navigational aids inoperative and caused his Pathfinder equipment to work with difficulty, and the leader of the first box overran the IP, and, but for the fact that he turned and followed Lt. Loeffler's lead would not have bombed at all. Still, Lt Loeffler, with superb skill and outstanding devotion to duty, led both boxes effectively over the target, destroyed it with excellent results and brought his aircraft back without navigational aids, through a necessarily deviating course; without lights or radio at a time when a landing would have been difficult, if not impossible, since no towers could be contacted, it was dark and the field became closed in, and when bailing out of the crew and abandonment of the aircraft seemed imminent. His acts reflect great credit upon himself and upon the Armed Forces of the United States.