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 Sergeant Peter Gillespie (ASN: 89757), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Machine-Gun Company, 165th Infantry Regiment, 42d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, near Villers-sur-Fere, France, 29 July 1918. Locating an enemy sniper, Sergeant Gillespie, then a private, took the rifle of a dead comrade, and with no regard to personal safety, crawled forward under heavy machine-gun fire to a position far in advance of the assaulting wave. After an exchange of shots, he killed an enemy sniper, who had killed or wounded several members of his battalion, and worked his was back to his own lines through an area, swept by fire from nearby heights. When all of his officers had been evacuated, he rallied the survivors of his company and held them to their task, after another company had been sent up as relief. He aided materially in the repulse of a strong counterattack, although suffering from the effects of gas, refusing to be evacuated till he became exhausted and was carried from the field.