CITATION TO ACCOMPANY THE AWARD OF THE MEDAL FOR MERIT
           TO
  DR. CLARENCE N. HICKMAN

DR. CLARENCE N. HICKMAN, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in
the performance of outstanding services to the United States from July,
1940 to June, 1946.

Dr. Hickman, Chief of Section H of the Division of Rocket Ordnance of
the National Defense Research Committee, Office of Scientific Research
and Development, foresaw, with rare vision and with remarkable accuracy,
at the outset of the European hostilities and before the United States
was involved in the war, the role of the rocket in modern warfare.

As a rocket enthusiast since the days of the first world war and as a
scientist, with experience in the field of rocketry and knowledge of
how the relatively crude, early rockets might be improved, he was able
to grasp their tremendous potentialities as weapons, and he was
instrumental in persuading the National Defense Research Committee that
a program of rocket research should be instituted.

He displayed great enterprise and scientific acumen in his direction
of the work of the Atlantic Coast group of investigators at the
Allegheny Ballistics Laboratory whose studies led to the development of
powerful new weapons; the small rocket to be used by infantrymen which
was effective against tanks; the jet-accelerated armor-piercing bomb;
the target rocket to be used in the training of anti-aircraft gunners;
the recoilless gun; and a high velocity aircraft rocket.

That the rocket weapons of the United States were among the most vital
and successful types of ordnance is the result in no small part of
Dr. Hickman's vision and planning.

  HARRY S. TRUMAN

  THE WHITE HOUSE
  February 2, 1948

(Presented at Governor's Island on Tuesday, June 22, 1948)

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