Nellus A. Rhodes

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Nellus A. Rhodes, Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action at Fismette, France, August 9, 1918. When the town had been taken by his battalion in the morning and was being held at night against terrific counterattacks in which our troops were engaged most of the time in desperate hand-to-hand combat, Lieutenant Rhodes, although a member of the battalion intelligence section, when into the most dangerous places and by his splendid courage bolstered the morale of the other members of the command, who were being hard pressed by enemy troops who had gained entrance to the town. Learning that the enemy was coming through t he back of a building, he bravely entered it, killing four of the enemy, and retained possession of the building. With five or six stragglers, he crossed and re-crossed a street swept by hostile machine-gun fire and prevented the enemy from filtering through a hole which they had blown in the wall of the building. His courageous actions were an inspiration to his comrades in the desperate fighting.