FRED HODGON, First Lieutenant, Infantry, Commanding Officer, Company “F” (the Platoon Leader, Company “E”), 15th Infantry Regiment, for extraordinary heroism in action. At 1030 hours on 26 October 1944, near Bourgonce, France, Lieutenant Hodgon made five singlehanded assaults on a powerful concentration of enemy armor which had halted his company. Advancing alone through 105 millimeter and 75 millimeter concentrations, while four enemy tanks deluged the area with cannon and machine gun fire, he knocked out two Mark IV tanks at ten and fifteen yards range with a bazooka; killed two riflemen in foxholes with sub-machine gun fire; stalked a third tank and killed its commander with his pistol at ten yards range. Lieutenant Hodgon’s unparalleled fearlessness inspired his company to shatter the remaining enemy armor.

Mr. Hodgon joined the Legion of Valor in 1987 and resided in Minnesota.