Mark E. Kerr

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Mark E. Kerr, Private First Class, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action near Fleville and St, Juvin, France, October 11 – 13, 1918. After 36 hours of continuous firing over heavily shelled roads, Private Kerr upon his own initiative was the first to establish liaison with an advanced dressing station which had been isolated by the explosion of a tank trap. To do this he lifted his car across the mine crater with the aid of some infantrymen, and for eight hours thereafter drove his ambulance through a heavy bombardment of high- explosive and gas shells between the mine crater and the dressing station. During this period his car was pierced repeatedly by shell fragments two of his patients receiving additional wounds. Two days later when the infantry had made a further advance his car was again the first to establish liaison with an advanced dressing station on the outskirts of St. Juvin.