John Baird Atwood

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to John Baird Atwood, Major, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action north of Montfaucon, France, September 28, 1918. The elements of the leading company of his battalion being stopped by terrific enemy machine-gun and artillery fire from the Bois-de-Beuge and the sunken Nantillois-Cunel Road and in danger of disorganization, Major Atwood then rushed personally into a position of the most extreme danger in the first wave, called to his men to follow, turned the retreat into an advance, and fell dead from a rifle wound in the face as he personally directed fire on an enemy machine-gun nest.