Citation:

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Bobell Purdy, Private, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action near Sedan, France, November 7, 1918.

Private Purdy was a member of a patrol sent out to silence machine-gun nests which were holding up the battalion's advance. When the officer leading the patrol fell mortally wounded this soldier attempted to go to the officer's assistance, despite heavy fire from machine-guns only 100 yards away, and was himself killed.