Two women were the first to earn this Army combat award

The first Americans to earn the Distinguished Service Cross were not combat soldiers but two women serving as nurses with the British Army before the U.S. entered World War I. 

On Aug. 17, 1917, Nurses Beatrice MacDonald and Helen McClelland of the Army Nurse Corps Reserve were assigned to a surgical team at the British Casualty Clearing Station Number 61 near Lillers, France. 
During a German night air raid, MacDonald and McClelland continued caring for their patients despite bombs raining down all around them. When explosion wounded MacDonald, causing her to lose sight in one eye, McClelland treated her fellow nurse along with the other wounded service members.

Their actions under fire were the combat actions first deemed worthy of the Army’s then-new Distinguished Service Cross, which had been officially created by Congress on Jan. 2, 1917. The two were awarded the Cross on July 9, 1918.

Since the award was officially authorized by Congress as the nation’s second highest award for valor, over 20,000 service members have been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross or its sister awards, the Navy Cross or Air Force Cross, which are often collectively referred to as the ‘service crosses’ (the Distinguished Flying Cross, given for acts of bravery in flight, falls farther down the hierarchy, in line with a Bronze Star).
Though MacDonald and McClelland were the first to earn the DSC after its introduction, they were not the first to actually receive it. Three 1st Infantry Division soldiers were the first to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross during WW I. Army 2nd Lt. John Newport Greene of the 6th Field Artillery, and Sgt. William Norton and Pvt. Patrick Walsh, both of Company I, 18th Infantry, went above and beyond the call of duty on March 1, 1918, earning the Distinguished Service Cross and awarded on March 18, 1918.