All the Roosevelt sons had military training prior to World War I. With the outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914, there was a heightened concern about the nation's readiness for military engagement. Only the month before, Congress had belatedly recognized the significance of military aviation by authorizing the creation of an Aviation Section in the Signal Corps. In 1915, Major General
Leonard Wood, a friend of Theodore Roosevelt since the
Rough Rider days, organized a summer camp at Plattsburgh, New York, to provide military training for business and professional men at their own expense. It would be this summer training program that would provide the basis of a greatly expanded junior officers corps when the country entered World War I. During August 1915, many well-heeled young men from some of the finest East Coast schools, including Quentin Roosevelt and two of his brothers, attended the camp. When the United States entered the war, commissions were offered to the graduates of these schools based on their performance. The National Defense Act of 1916 continued the student military training and the businessmen's summer camps and placed them on a firmer legal basis by authorizing an Officers' Reserve Corps and a Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). Quentin, just out of the rigors of Groton and Harvard, did not really enjoy the training, but stuck it out anyway. After the declaration of war, when the American Expeditionary Force was organizing, Theodore wired Major General
John J. Pershing and volunteered to form a division and have his sons accompany him to Europe as privates. Pershing, who was a friend of Roosevelt dating back to the Cuban campaign, and had served under him when T.R. was president, accepted the proposal, but the War Department and President Woodrow Wilson overrode the decision. Roosevelt took the issue to Congress, but Wilson prevailed. In the end, all four of Theodore's sons served in World War I as officers, but Theodore spent the war making speeches for the Red Cross. With
American entry into World War I, Quentin thought his mechanical skills would be useful to the Army. Just engaged to Flora, he dropped out of college in May 1917 to join the newly formed
1st Reserve Aero Squadron, the first air reserve unit in the nation. He trained on
Long Island at an
airfield later renamed
Roosevelt Field in his honor. Today, a shopping mall sits on the site that is also named
Roosevelt Field.
Air service in France Finally sent to France, Lieutenant Roosevelt first helped in setting up the large
Air Service training base at
Issoudun. He was a supply officer and then, in time, ran one of the training airfields. Eventually, he became a pilot in the
95th Aero Squadron, part of the 1st Pursuit Group. The unit was posted to
Touquin, France and, on July 9, 1918,
Saints, France. During the time that he was flying from Saints, he was billeted just half a mile away at Melina Thibault's home in
Mauperthuis, France where he roomed with supply officer Ed Thomas. Roosevelt had one confirmed kill of a German aircraft during the
German spring offensive, which he shot down on July 10, 1918. Four days later, in a massive aerial engagement at the commencement of the
Second Battle of the Marne, he was himself shot down behind German lines. Captain
Eddie Rickenbacker, commander of the
94th Aero Squadron (also known as the "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron), in his memoirs described Roosevelt's character as a soldier and pilot in the following words: Quentin's plane (a
Nieuport 28) was shot down in aerial combat over Chamery, a hamlet of Coulonges-en-Tardenois (now
Coulonges-Cohan). He was killed by two machine gun bullets which struck him in the head. The German military buried him with full battlefield honors. Since the plane had crashed so near the front lines, they used two pieces of basswood saplings, bound together with wire from his Nieuport, to fashion a cross for his grave. For propaganda purposes, they made a postcard of the dead pilot and his plane. However, this was met with shock in Germany, which still held Theodore Roosevelt in high respect and was impressed that a former president's son died on active duty. According to his service record, the site was at Marne Grave #1 Isolated Commune #102, Coulongue Aisne. The French government posthumously awarded him the
Croix de Guerre with Palm.
Final combat flight and death Three German pilots have been credited with Quentin Roosevelt's shootdown and death at various times, and all three may have been responsible. Leutnant
Karl Thom of
Jasta 21, one of the leading German
flying aces of the war, was in the vicinity with confirmed kills nearby; he was often credited with the downing but never made a formal claim. Leutnant
Christian Donhauser of
Jasta 17 claimed credit and later publicized himself as Roosevelt's killer. Sergeant Carl Graeper of
Jasta 50 also claimed responsibility, though if he did fire the fatal shots, it would have been his only victory of the war. All three may have been engaged in the
dogfight in which Roosevelt was killed. In 1921, Quentin's brother Kermit Roosevelt published
Quentin Roosevelt: A Sketch with Letters, a collection of Quentin's correspondence and tributes written after his death. Pages 169–171 describe the circumstances of his final flight. One letter was written by American pilot Lieutenant Edward Buford, who had witnessed Roosevelt’s last mission and later described the events to his family. Kermit also included an intercepted German communiqué of 14 July 1918 describing the engagement, which stated that Roosevelt had shown "conspicuous bravery" before being shot in the head. A later German bulletin further confirmed the death of "the son of former President of the United States." German reports credited a non-commissioned officer named Greper with the victory. The German press, including the
Kölnische Zeitung, reported on the encounter, describing Roosevelt as having died "the death of a hero" and noting that he was buried with military honors by German aviators. Funeral services for Roosevelt were witnessed on 15 July by Captain James E. Gee of the
110th Infantry, who was then a prisoner of war being moved through Chamery, near the crash site. Gee later recalled that about one thousand German soldiers stood in formation around the grave, and that officers explained the elaborate ceremony was conducted both to honor Roosevelt’s bravery and out of respect for his father. On 18 July 1918, during the Allied counter-offensive, Chamery was recaptured and Roosevelt’s grave was discovered. A wooden cross placed by the Germans bore the inscription: :
Leutnant Q. Roosevelt :
Honored and Buried by the Imperial German Army Broken propeller blades and the remains of his aircraft were placed near the grave. American engineers later marked the site with a cross inscribed: The French also placed an oaken enclosure with an inscription: English translation:
Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt, Squadron 95, fallen gloriously in aerial combat, 14 July 1918, for right and liberty. After Allied forces regained control of the area, Roosevelt’s grave became a place of pilgrimage for American soldiers. His death was deeply felt by his father,
Theodore Roosevelt, who had strongly supported his son's decision to join the war. Theodore himself died less than six months later. In 1955, eleven years after the establishment of the
World War II American Cemetery at
Colleville-sur-Mer, Roosevelt's remains were reinterred there beside his eldest brother,
Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who had died in 1944 after leading troops during the
Normandy landings and was posthumously awarded the
Medal of Honor. Quentin’s original gravestone was moved to
Sagamore Hill as a
cenotaph, while the German-made wooden cross that had marked his original grave is preserved at the
National Museum of the United States Air Force at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,
Dayton, Ohio. ==Commemorations==