The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Major (Infantry) Walter Francis Llewllyn Hartigan, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with 118th Infantry Regiment, 30th Division, American Expeditionary Forces, near Bellicourt, France, 29 September 1918. During the attack against the Hindenburg line, while at the division forward observation post, Major Hartigan, realizing that many men were losing their direction in the heavy fog, voluntarily left his post of comparative safety, went forward under a heavy hostile artillery barrage, and in the face of machine-gun fire reorganized into detachments at this critical time several hundred stragglers of the 60th Brigade, as well as two companies of the 117th Infantry. Securing tanks to accompany them, by indefatigable efforts he directed these units forward when their assistance was of prime importance to the successful issue of the combat.