COLONEL J.B. MOREHEAD (then Second Lieutenant) for extraordinary heroism in action near Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, on 25 April 1942. When commanding a flight of four fighter planes, Lieutenant Morehead sighted twenty-eight enemy bombers protected by enemy fighters. Disregarding the accompanying enemy fighters, he immediately led his flight in an attack against the bombers, and succeeded in shooting down two of them. He then engaged an enemy fighter and shot it down also. In spite of the great hostile superiority in numbers, Lieutenant Morehead succeeded in returning to his airdrome with all planes of his flight, although his own plane was heavily damaged by enemy fire.

This battle occurred when the Allies were losing the war and the time Winston Churchill termed “The Hinge of Fate”. There had been no aerial victories. The flight of eight P-40s claimed 11 Japs shot down. A first victory for the beleaguered Allies.

Col. Morehead joined the Legion of Valor in 1977 and resides in Northern California.