Walter Keene

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Walter Keene, Private First Class, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action at Arbre Guernon, France, October 17, 1918. During the advance of his company into the town, Private Keene, with utter disregard of his own personal danger, pursued several of the enemy into a house, and, single-handed, captured ten of them as they were in the act of setting up a machine-gun. On the following morning, October 18, 1918, near the town of Mazinghein, when the advance of the battalion had been temporarily halted by heavy enemy fire, Private Keene voluntarily carried a message for reinforcements to battalion headquarters through intense shell and machine-gun fire and returned with the necessary reinforcements, thereby enabling the battalion to continue its advance.