He was awarded the VC for his actions in late September 1918, during the Hundred Days Offensive of the First World War.

After the evacuation from Gallipoli, he participated with the battalion in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign before it was transferred to the Western Front in France.

McGuffie had taken command of a platoon due to its officers becoming casualties and helped deal with a strongpoint known as Picadilly Farm, as well as several other German-occupied posts that were delaying the advance.

During consolidation of the first objective he pursued and brought back several of the enemy who were slipping away, and he was instrumental in releasing some British soldiers who were being led off as prisoners.

[1] One hundred years to the day after the events which earned Sgt McGuffie his Victoria Cross, on 28 September 2018 a paving stone and commemorative archway, commissioned by Wigtown Community Council, were unveiled at the entrance to Wigtown's Louis McGuffie VC Memorial Gardens, which includes the town's lawn bowling green and lawns.