AWARDED DFC: 1
CONFLICT/SPACE FLIGHT/EVENT:  WWII
MODEL:  B-29

Citation:  1.) The President of the United States takes great pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Flying Cross to Staff Sergeant Richard B. Vogenitz for extraordinary achievement while participating in aerial flight over Tokyo, Japan, 24 May 1945. These individuals formed the combat crew of a B-29 aircraft assigned to a night incendiary strike from a base in the Marianas against the urban area of the Japanese capital city. Displaying the utmost coolness, courage, and skill, they brought their plane to the target through weather conditions of unusual adversity, enemy fighter attacks, and continuously pointed heavy anti-aircraft fire that reached the proportions of a barrage over the target, augmented by searchlights and parachute flares. In spite of this savage opposition, this crew unswervingly held to the assigned course, and bombed the target, withdrawing from the area through a storm of flak. The superior airmanship and skill, as well as the outstanding courage and coolness displayed by these veterans of repeated assaults against the Japanese homeland on this occasion materially aided in a mission which contributed to the successful prosecution of the war, and reflect great credit on themselves and the United States Army Air Forces.