William M. Rice
Home Town: North East, MD
Distinguished Service Cross
World War I
U.S. Army
General Orders No. 37, W.D., 1919
The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to William M. Rice, Corporal, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action in Consenvoye Woods, France, October 9, 1918. Seeing a good position in advance of the lines, Corporal Rice took his automatic rifle and crawled through machine-gun fire to this place, where he established an automatic-rifle post and called on his squad to follow him. An enemy counterattack was eventually broken up at this point and the line was thereby advanced to a more advantageous position.