Melvin H. Mccoy

The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Melvin H. McCoy, Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy as a Prisoner of War of the Japanese in the Philippine Islands during the period 4 April 1943 through 9 July 1944. Lieutenant Commander McCoy was one of ten men including two Naval Officers, three Air Corps Officers, and two Marine Corps Officers who escaped after nearly a year in captivity after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor. The ten men evaded their captors for days until connecting with Filipino Guerillas under Wendell Fertig. The officers remained with the guerillas for weeks, obtaining vital information which they carried with them when they were subsequently evacuated by American submarines. Their escape was the only mass escape from a Japanese prison camp during the war.