Floyd T. Smith

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Floyd T. Smith, Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action at Villers-de-Mouzon, France, November 7, 1918. When the Meuse River was reached it was found unfordable, thereby making it necessary to construct a bridge. Lieutenant Smith, in charge of a platoon of four machine guns, sited two guns to support the engineers building this bridge. He then crossed the river alone under heavy machine-gun fire on the partly completed bridge in order to locate the enemy. He advanced on the supposed location of enemy machine-gun nests and fired upon them with a rifle. Two of the enemy then surrendered and several others fled. Holding his prisoners at the bridgehead, he continued to fire on the retreating enemy until the bridge was completed and the patrols had crossed.