MG FRANCIS L. SAMPSON, received the Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism as an airborne chaplain with the 501st Airborne Infantry on 6 and 7 June 1944 at Balise Addeville, France. On the afternoon of D-Day a small force of parachute infantry were forced to evacuate their positions to the enemy’s advance. Chaplain Sampson, though strongly urged otherwise, elected to remain behind with 14 seriously wounded men. When the enemy seized the position Chaplain Sampson immediately made his presence known so that no attack would be made on the wounded men. Granted permission to remain with the wounded, he valiantly struggled in the face of the most hazardous and difficult conditions to keep the men alive. On the second night during an artillery barrage which lasted four hours and virtually demolished the house, while he administered blood plasma and aid to the wounded. As three shells hit the building he threw his bed across the wounded to protect them. He made numerous trips across a shell swept courtyard to ascertain the conditions of the most seriously wounded men. When a shell destroyed the adjacent room, fatally injuring the two men therein, he immediately went to their assistance and attempted to dig them out from the debris. He suffered a second degree burn from a tracer bullet but continued to care for the wounded. In the morning, after the Germans left the vicinity, an evacuation party arrived. Assured that the living wounded were evacuated to the division hospital, Chaplain Sampson proceeded to the same hospital where he gave a seriously wounded man a liter of blood and spent the remainder of the day and night rendering spiritual and physical aid to the wounded. The courage, fortitude and heroism displayed by Chaplain Sampson is worthy of emulation.

Monsignor Sampson joined the Legion of Valor in 1963.