The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross (Posthumously) to Staff Sergeant Sherrod Clifford Lines (ASN: 20725198), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving with Company E, 2d Battalion, 137th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division, in action against enemy forces on 12 September 1944. On that date, Company E, 137th Infantry Regiment, with which Sergeant Lines was serving as a platoon leader, was advancing against the enemy near Luneville, France. When a rocket-launcher team of the company drove five enemy tanks into the woods, Sergeant Lines bravely maneuvered his way after them, carrying a sound-power telephone, creeping and crawling forward under heavy enemy machine gun fire. He climbed a tree from which he directed artillery fire against the enemy tanks and in order to escape destruction from an enemy machine gun nest within thirty yards of his position, it was necessary that he whisper his fire directions into the telephone. His observation and fire direction were so ac curate that three of the enemy tanks were destroyed and the others forced to withdraw. Sergeant Lines remained in his precarious position throughout the action, ignoring the danger from friendly Artillery shells falling around him. His conspicuous courage and his supreme, heroic devotion to duty exemplify the highest traditions of the military forces of the United States.