The ship in which he served was torpedoed at night. The crew abandoned the fast-sinking ship in an orderly fashion except for one man. This man, a fireman weighing 250 pounds, lost his hold in descending the Jacobs ladder. In his struggles to catch himself, he became so fouled in the boat falls that he was hanging head down and helpless. Zito left his position in the lifeboat; climbed hand over hand up the falls, and attempted to extricate the now thoroughly panic-stricken man. Thwarted in his efforts to free the fireman, the young cadet cut the falls above them with his clasp knife and both men fell into the sea. Zito worked desperately to remove the ropes from the still struggling fireman. Failing in this, he, now at the point of exhaustion, took the entangled man in tow until both were picked up by a lifeboat. Zito’s heroism in thus saving the life of one of his shipmates at great risk to his own is in keeping with the finest traditions of the United States Merchant Marine.