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 Second Lieutenant (Infantry) Ralph E. Ladue, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Company A, 11th Machine-Gun Battalion, 4th Division, American Expeditionary Forces, near Chouy, France, 19 July 1918. When the advance of the infantry regiment to which he was attached was temporarily halted by direct machine-gun frontal fire and by strong enfilading fire from an enemy machine-gun nest in a stone tower on a flank, Lieutenant Ladue voluntarily made a reconnaissance in advance of the front line crawling from shell hole to shell hole under heavy enemy fire. He then gallantly led two squads of machine guns into a position of great danger about 100 yards in front of the firing line, and by his extraordinary coolness and tactical skill so directed the fire of his guns that the machine-gun nest was silenced, thereby permitting the advance of the entire firing line.