Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)

Frederick James Kroesen Jr. (February 11, 1923 – April 30, 2020) was a United States Army four-star general who served as the Commanding General of the Seventh United States Army and the commander of NATO Central Army Group from 1979 to 1983, and Commanding General, United States Army Forces Command from 1976 to 1978. He also served as Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1978 to 1979. He commanded troops in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, enabling him to be one of the very small number who ever was entitled to wear the Combat Infantryman Badge with two Stars, denoting active combat in three wars.

Joe Henry Engle (born August 26, 1932) is an American pilot, aeronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was the commander of two Space Shuttle missions including STS-2 in 1981, the program's second orbital flight. He also flew two flights in the Shuttle program's 1977 Approach and Landing Tests. Engle is one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA, and the last surviving test pilot of the aircraft. After Richard H. Truly died In 2024, Engle is now the last surviving crew member of STS-2.
As an X-15 pilot, Engle made three flights above 50 miles, thus qualifying for astronaut wings under the American convention for the boundary of space. In 1966 he was selected for NASA's 5th Astronaut Group, joining the Apollo program. He was backup Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) for Apollo 14 and originally scheduled as LMP for Apollo 17. However, cancellation of later flights prompted NASA to select geologist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt as LMP, displacing Engle.

James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military officer. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality, which he portrayed both on and off the screen, he epitomized the "American ideal" in the mid-twentieth century. In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) ranked him third on its list of the greatest American male actors. He received numerous honors including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1980, the Kennedy Center Honor in 1983, as well as the Academy Honorary Award and Presidential Medal of Freedom, both in 1985.
Born and raised in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Stewart started acting while at Princeton University. After graduating, he began a career as a stage actor making his Broadway debut in the play Carry Nation (1932). He landed his first supporting role in The Murder Man (1935) and had his breakthrough in Frank Capra's ensemble comedy You Can't Take It with You (1938). Stewart went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in George Cukor romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story (1940). His other Oscar-nominated roles were in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Harvey (1950) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).
Stewart played darker, more morally ambiguous characters in movies directed by Anthony Mann, including Winchester '73 (1950), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), and The Naked Spur (1953), and by Alfred Hitchcock in Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Vertigo (1958). Stewart also starred in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) as well as the Western films How the West Was Won (1962), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).
He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, deputy commanding the 2nd Bombardment Wing and commanding the 703d Bombardment Squadron from 1941 to 1947. He later transferred to the Air Force Reserve, and held various command positions until his retirement in 1968 as a brigadier general. Stewart remained unmarried until his 40s and was dubbed "The Great American Bachelor" by the press. In 1949, he married former model Gloria Hatrick McLean. They had twin daughters, and he adopted her two sons from her previous marriage. The marriage lasted until McLean's death in 1994, and Stewart died of a pulmonary embolism three years later.

Bernard William Rogers (July 16, 1921 – October 27, 2008) was a United States Army general who served as the 28th Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and later as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and Commander in Chief, United States European Command.
Besides the Distinguished Service Cross, Rogers' decorations included the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star, four awards of the Legion of Merit and three awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Francis Richard Scobee (May 19, 1939 – January 28, 1986) was an American pilot, engineer, and astronaut. He was killed while commanding the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, which suffered catastrophic booster failure during launch of the STS-51-L mission.Scobee held a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering, graduating from the University of Arizona in 1965. He was a reciprocating engine mechanic for the United States Air Force and served as a combat aviator in the Vietnam War.
Selected for NASA Astronaut Corps in January 1978, Scobee completed his training in August 1979. While awaiting his first orbital spaceflight mission, Scobee served as an instructor pilot for the Shuttle's 747 carrier aircraft. In April 1984, he piloted Challenger mission STS-41-C, which successfully deployed one satellite and repaired another.

Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. (, German: [ˈʃvartskɔp͡f]; August 22, 1934 – December 27, 2012) was a United States Army general. While serving as the commander of United States Central Command, he led all coalition forces in the Gulf War against Ba'athist Iraq.
Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Schwarzkopf grew up in the United States and later in Iran. He was accepted by the United States Military Academy and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army in 1956. After a number of initial training programs, Schwarzkopf interrupted a stint as an academy teacher and served in the Vietnam War, first as an adviser to the South Vietnamese Army and then as a battalion commander. Schwarzkopf was highly decorated in Vietnam and was awarded three Silver Stars, two Purple Hearts, and the Legion of Merit. Rising through the ranks after the Vietnam war, he later commanded the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division and was one of the commanders of the invasion of Grenada in 1983.
Assuming command of United States Central Command in 1988, Schwarzkopf was called on to respond to the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 by the forces of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Initially tasked with defending Saudi Arabia from Iraqi aggression, Schwarzkopf's command eventually grew to an international force of over 750,000 troops. After diplomatic relations broke down, he planned and led Operation Desert Storm, an extended air campaign followed by a highly successful 100-hour ground offensive, which defeated the Iraqi Army and removed Iraqi troops from Kuwait in early 1991. Schwarzkopf was presented with military honors.
Schwarzkopf retired shortly after the end of the war and undertook a number of philanthropic ventures, only occasionally stepping into the political spotlight before his death from complications of pneumonia. A hard-driving military commander, easily angered, Schwarzkopf was considered an exceptional leader by many biographers and was noted for his abilities as a military diplomat and in dealing with the press.

Brendan Thomas Byrne (April 1, 1924 – January 4, 2018) was an American attorney and Democratic Party politician who served as the 47th Governor of New Jersey from 1974 to 1982.
Byrne began his career as a private attorney in Newark and East Orange. In 1959, Governor Robert B. Meyner appointed Byrne to serve as Essex County Prosecutor; he served in that role until 1968. In the late 1960s, an FBI wiretap recorded local mobsters calling Byrne "the man who couldn't be bought" in reference to his high ethical standards. The publication of the comment propelled Byrne to popularity in an era when corruption was a major concern in state and national politics. He left his office as prosecutor to serve as President of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities from 1968 to 1970, then as a Superior Court judge.
In 1973, using "the man who couldn't be bought" as a campaign slogan, Byrne ran for governor of New Jersey. He won the Democratic primary with support from the powerful Hudson County political machine and carried the general election. His landslide victory, until then the largest in the state's history, was seen as a reaction against a bribery scandal in state government and the Watergate scandal.
During his first term, Byrne signed the state's first income tax, which broke a campaign promise and was initially highly unpopular across party lines. In 1977, he faced several prominent challengers for the party nomination but won the Democratic primary with a small plurality of the vote. Despite expectations he would lose the general election to Raymond Bateman, Byrne came from behind to win a second term.
During his time as governor, Byrne oversaw the opening of the first gambling casinos in Atlantic City and established the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate. He also preserved a large majority of woodlands and wildlife areas in the state by restricting development.

Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (, March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was an American naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put humans into space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed Sigma 7, becoming the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In December 1965, as part of the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1 foot (30 cm) of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first crewed launch for the Apollo program.
Before becoming an astronaut, Schirra graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1945, and served at sea during World War II. In 1948, he became a naval aviator, served as a fighter pilot and flew 90 combat missions in the Korean War, and then in 1958 he graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. Schirra retired from the Navy in 1969 with the rank of captain.
Schirra was the first astronaut to go into space three times, and the only astronaut to have flown into space in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. In total, he logged 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. After Apollo 7, he retired as a captain from the U.S. Navy as well as from NASA, subsequently becoming a consultant to CBS News in the network's coverage of following Apollo flights. Schirra joined Walter Cronkite as co-anchor for all seven of NASA's Moon landing missions.

Louis Joseph Kirn (June 8, 1908 – November 17, 1995), nicknamed Bullet Lou Kirn, was a rear admiral in the United States Navy.

¡Herman Alfred Schmid (3 August 1910 – 12 April 1985) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. He served in World War II and the Korean War.