Bertrande C. Neidecker

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Bertrande C. Neidecker, First Lieutenant (Air Service), U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action near Bethlainville, France, November 4 – 5, 1918. Lieutenant Neidecker, pilot, and Second Lieutenant Horace A. Lake, observer, volunteered for an important mission over the enemy’s lines. Flying through fog and rain they penetrated 30 kilometers behind the enemy’s lines and succeeded in surprising an important movement of enemy troops, descended to within 60 meters of the ground to harass the enemy troops trains and returned with information of the enemy which was of vital importance to the operations of the Allied Forces. On the following day they again flew over the enemy’s lines and, although attacked by three patrols of hostile enemy aircraft and by antiaircraft and machine-gun fire, they accomplished their mission and returned with important information.