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 [then Sergeant] John Allen Gustafson (MCSN: 0-2470), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving with the Forty-Seventh Company, Fifth Regiment (Marines), 2d Division, A.E.F., in action near Chateau-Thierry, France, 23 June 1918. During an advance by his company Lieutenant Gustafson directed a charge on an enemy machine-gun emplacement, destroying four guns and taking twenty-eight prisoners. Later in the attack he alone charged a machine-gun nest, killing one gunner, wounding another, and causing the remaining three to surrender.