James Patton, BS
Military Historian, U.S. Army Veteran, and WW-I Feature Writer

Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest child of President Theodore Roosevelt, is one of the most well-known and long-remembered figures of the Great War, as an aviator right up there with Manfred von Richtofen. Why? Unlike the Red Baron, Quentin wasn’t famed for his record in aerial combat: just one victory, but all the other ‘Aces’ have slipped from the public consciousness: Rene Fonck (75 victories), Billy Bishop (72 victories), Georges Guynemer (54 victories), Albert Ball (44 victories) and even America’s Eddie Rickenbacker (26 victories).

2nd Lt. Quentin Roosevelt

Such was Quentin’s popularity that Rickenbacker, who likely never crossed paths with Quentin on the Western Front, wanted to tie himself to Quentin’s mystique and devoted most of a chapter of his 1919 memoir Fighting the Flying Circus (Wings of War) to Quentin, claiming a familiarity with him that probably never existed:

"As President Roosevelt's son he had rather a difficult task to fit himself in with the democratic style of living which is necessary in the intimate life of an aviation camp. Every one who met him for the first time expected him to have the airs and superciliousness of a spoiled boy. This notion was quickly lost after the first glimpse one had of Quentin. Gay, hearty and absolutely square in everything he said or did, Quentin Roosevelt was one of the most popular fellows in the group. We loved him purely for his own natural self."

"He was reckless to such a degree that his commanding officers had to caution him repeatedly about the senselessness of his lack of caution. His bravery was so notorious that we all knew he would either achieve some great spectacular success or be killed in the attempt. Even the pilots in his own flight would beg him to conserve himself and wait for a fair opportunity for a victory. But Quentin would merely laugh away all serious advice.”

Quentin’s immortality stems from two facts: he was American ‘royalty’ and in the eyes of the press he was always newsworthy. His death in aerial combat was described in great if sometimes fanciful detail and depicted as gallant when in fact it was quite ordinary. The British rule that most new pilots didn’t survive two weeks in combat held true in Quentin’s case – he lasted just nine days.

It was his death, not its circumstances that set Quentin apart from the rest of his famous family. His three male siblings, all of whom served, failed to capture public attention like Quentin. Why? Because they survived.

Quentin Roosevelt's original grave site, 1920’s

It wasn’t just an American thing. The French posthumously awarded Quentin a Croix de Guerre with Palm (which the US Army regarded as honorary) and a small shrine was built around Quentin’s original grave, which became a popular pilgrimage site, and the memorials at the crash site and in the nearby village of Sancy-les-Cheminots are regularly tended and visited today.

The Germans weren’t to be left out either. Quentin went down behind their lines and his identity was quickly learned, so the German press announced Quentin’s death first. A photograph showing Quentin’s corpse lying beside his Nieuport 28 was printed on post cards which in a 1918 way went viral in Germany, and today the image is easily found on the internet.

Quentin’s grave at the ABMC cemetery at Colville-sur-Mer from www.findagrave.com

In 1955 Quentin’s remains were moved to the ABMC cemetery at Colville-sur-Mer, were he lies beside his brother Ted, who died in WW2.

Quentin was born on November 19th, 1897. Quentin and his siblings were in the public eye as there had been no young children in the White House since Lincoln. TR saw his sons thusly: Ted was a plodder, Kermit was sickly, Archie was a rogue and Quentin was the future politician. All of the boys went to Harvard.

In the summer of 1915, with brothers Ted and Archie, Quentin completed the first of Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood’s Officer’s Training Courses at Plattsburgh Barracks, NY. The course was intended for college graduates, but Wood was an old pal of TR from Cuba and made an exception. Quentin’s performance was graded mediocre and he freely admitted that he didn’t care for the experience, but he did get his certificate. Given who his father was, that result was probably axiomatic.

When the US entered the war all Plattsburgh graduates were offered commissions. Quentin joined the 1st Reserve Aero Squadron, faking the eye exam by memorizing the chart. He passed his training and on June 17th, 1918 he joined the 95th “Kicking Mule” Squadron.

Quentin Roosevelt in his Nieuport 28

On his July 10th sortie he reported a probable:

“They had been going absolutely straight and I was nearly in formation when the leader did a turn, and I saw to my horror that they had white tails with black crosses on them. Still I was so near by them that I thought I might pull up a little and take a crack at them. I had altitude on them, and what was more they hadn’t seen me, so I pulled up, put my sights on the end man, and let go. I saw my tracers going all around him, but for some reason he never even turned, until all of a sudden his tail came up and he went down in a [spin]. I wanted to follow him but the other two had started around after me, so I had to cut and run.”

The victory was never confirmed and wasn’t credited to Quentin until after his death.

His final sortie was on Bastille Day. His flight leader, 1st. Lt. Edward Buford Jr. wrote:

“About a half a mile away I saw one of our planes with three Boche on him, and he seemed to be having a pretty hard time with them, so I shook the two I was maneuvering with and tried to get over to him, but before I could reach them, [his] machine turned over on its back and plunged down out of control. I realized it was too late to be of any assistance”.

Three German pilots might have downed Quentin. Most likely was Leutnant Karl Thon of Jasta 21, a Pour le Mérite holder with 27 victories, who claimed three victories on that day but didn’t specifically mention Quentin’s plane in his report. The others were Sergeant Carl-Emil Gräper of Jasta 50, whose written account of the event differs greatly from Buford’s, and Leutnant Christian Donhauser, also of Jasta 50.

At Quentin’s crash site wreckage from his plane was used to mark his grave, along with a wooden cross with the words: “Lieutenant Roosevelt, buried by the Germans.” Five days later the Germans left and the site became a magnet for soldiers, who ripped off bits of canvas as souvenirs.

The Roosevelts issued this statement to the press on July 17th:

“Quentin’s mother and I are very glad that he got to the front and had a chance to render some service to his country and show the stuff that was in him before his fate befell him.”

In the 1920’s Edith Roosevelt paid for a community water fountain at Chamery. She also had a marble slab placed over her son’s grave engraved with this quote from Percy Shelley’s “Adonais”:

He has outsoar’d the shadow of our night,
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again.

The background information and images are from Wikimedia Commons, Find-A-Grave.com, and the National Museum of the Air Force