Leonard Coombes Hammond

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Leonard Coombes Hammond, First Lieutenant (Air Service), U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action in the region of Metz, France, September 15, 1918. While on a photographic mission Lieutenant Hammond’s formation was attacked by a superior number of enemy pursuit planes. Notwithstanding that the enemy planes succeeded in driving off the protecting planes, Lieutenant Hammond and his pilot, Lieutenant Dickens, continued on alone. Continually harassed by enemy aircraft, they completed their photographs, and on the return fought their way through an enemy patrol and destroyed on of the machines.