He was awarded the medal for leading an attack on German pillboxes in the Hindenburg Line during the Battle of the Argonne.
Over the winter various German deception operations were conducted, indications of an offensive through Switzerland diverted French attention at the end of 1916 and the British were occupied by the movement of troops and heavy artillery into Flanders and increased agent reports from Lille, Tourcoing and Courtrai of troop movements.
On that day, his unit was participating in an assault on the Hindenburg Line east of Ronssoy when they were held up by intense machine gun fire.
They were the first Allied Army Unit to pierce the famed German Hindenburg Line of defense.
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The Division's men were the first American soldiers to enter cross the German border, piercing the famed and until this time invincible German Hindenburg Line of defense.
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However he was recalled from retirement to serve in World War I in 1914 and held command on the Western Front, taking part in the Battle of Loos in 1915, the capture of Gommecourt on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and was Commander R.E. of the 46th Division when it broke the Hindenburg Line in 1918.
The Australian Imperial Forces took part in the advance south of the Somme, the Hindenburg Line, and Montbrehain in October 1918.
The Great War: Mons, Retreat from Mons; Marne 1914; Aisne 1914; Messines 1914; Ypres 1914, 1915; Neuve Chapelle; St. Julien; Bellewaarde; Arras 1917; Scarpe 1917; Cambrai 1917, 1918; Somme 1918; St. Quentin; Lys; Hazebrouck; Amiens; Albert 1918; Bapaume 1918; Hindenburg Line; St. Quentin Canal; Beaurevoir; Sambre, France and Flanders 1914-18
Battle of St. Quentin Canal, attack by the British Fourth Army on the Hindenburg Line in September 1918
Battle of the Canal du Nord (September 1918), the French breaching of the Hindenburg line is sometimes called the "battle of Saint Quentin"
There they were stationed in the villages of Fouquescourt, Maucourt, Chilly and Hallu from which they would attack eastward toward the Hindenburg Line.