Quentin Roosevelt
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Quentin Roosevelt (November 19, 1897 – July 14, 1918) was the youngest and favorite son of President Theodore Roosevelt. Family and friends agreed that Quentin had many of his father's positive qualities and few of the negative ones. Encouraged by his father, he joined the US Army Air Corps where he became a fighter pilot during World War I. Extremely popular with his fellow pilots and known for his daring, he was killed in aerial combat over France.
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[edit] Childhood
Quentin was the youngest child of the Roosevelt family including half-sister Alice, sister, Ethel, and brothers Theodore Jr., Kermit and Archibald "Archie".
Quentin was only three years old when his father became president, and he grew up in the White House. By far the favorite of all of President Roosevelt's children, Quentin was also the most rambunctious. He was nicknamed "Quentyquee" and "Quinikins" by his father. He shared T.R.'s physical, intellectual, and linguistic characteristics.
Quentin's behaviour prompted his mother, Edith, to label him a "fine bad little boy". Amongst Quentin's many adventures with the "White House Gang" (a name assigned by T.R. to Quentin and his friends), Quentin carved a baseball diamond on the White House lawn without permission, defaced official presidential portraits in the White House with spitballs, and threw snowballs from the White House's roof at unsuspecting Secret Service guards.
He quickly became known for his humorous and sometimes philosophical remarks. To a reporter trying to trap the boy into giving information about his father, Quentin admitted, "I see him occasionally, but I know nothing of his family life." The family soon learned to keep him quiet during dinner when important guests were present.
Once, when his brother Archie was terribly ill, it was Quentin (with the help of Charles Lee, a White House coachman), who brought the pony Algonquin to his room by elevator, sure that this would make his brother better.
As a young man, Quentin displayed a natural mechanical aptitude. He could fix almost anything, and even rebuilt a motorcycle to present to a friend as a gift.
[edit] Education
Quentin attended the Force School in Washington, D.C.. Later he was a student at Groton School. Quentin sailed through all his formal schooling, consistently scoring high marks and showing much of the intellectual capacity of his father. He was admitted to Harvard University in 1916. Quentin loved machinery and rebuilt a motorcycle while in college. By the time Quentin was a sophomore at Harvard, also like his father, he was showing promise as a writer.
[edit] Personal life
The young Roosevelt was engaged to Flora Payne Whitney, the great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the country’s richest men, and also an heiress to the Whitney family fortune. The couple met at a ball in Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1916 and soon fell in love, although the alliance, between the modest, old-money Roosevelts and the flamboyantly wealthy Vanderbilt-Whitneys was at first controversial on both sides.
Quentin’s letters to Flora, from the time they met until his death, charted the course of America’s entry into the war. Theodore Roosevelt, incensed at America’s continuing neutrality in the face of Germany's actions -- including the sinking of the British cruise liner Lusitania in May 1915, in which 128 Americans drowned, campaigned unsuccessfully for the presidency in 1916, severely criticizing Woodrow Wilson, who was reelected on a neutrality platform. While he was initially neutral, Quentin came to agree with his father, writing to Flora in early 1917 from Harvard University, where he was studying, “We are a pretty sordid lot, aren’t we, to want to sit looking on while England and France fight our battles and pan gold into our pockets.”
[edit] Military Service
All the Roosevelt sons except Kermit had had some military training prior to World War I. With the outbreak of war in Europe in August 1914, there had been 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 Plattsburg, 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 the summer of 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, the Roosevelt boys' father, Theodore, wired Major General "Black Jack" Pershing asking if his sons could accompany him to Europe as privates. Pershing accepted, but, based on their training at Plattsburg, Archie was offered a commission with rank of second lieutenant, while Ted, Jr. was offered a commission as a rank of major.
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 to join a newly formed army aviation unit in the fledging Army Air Service. With his poor (Roosevelt) vision, he was forced to memorize the eye chart so that he could pass the physical exam. 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.
[edit] Quentin as an American Pilot in France
Finally sent to France, Lt. Roosevelt was a pilot in the 95th Aero Squadron, part of the 1st Pursuit Group. Though reportedly possessing poor distance vision, Roosevelt nevertheless claimed a German fighter shot down out of control on July 10, 1918. Just four days later, he was himself shot down behind German lines.
Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, Commander of the 94th Aero Squadron {aka the "Hat-in-the-Ring" Squadron}, in his memoirs described Roosevelt's character as soldier and pilot in the following words:
"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." [1]
Quentin's plane (a Nieuport 28), was shot down at Chamery, near Coulonges-en-Tardenois. He was felled by two machine gun bullets which struck him in the head. The German military buried Quentin with full battlefield honors. Since the plane had crashed so near the front lines, the Germans had to use two pieces of basswood saplings, bound together with wire from the Nieuport, to fashion a cross for his grave. For propaganda purposes, the Germans made a postcard of the dead pilot and plane.[2] According to his service record at the New York State Archives, the site was at Marne Grave # 1 Isolated Commune #102 Coulongue Aisne and he was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm.
After his grave came under Allied control, thousands of American soldiers visited it to pay their respects. Quentin's resting place became a shrine and an inspiration to his comrades in arms. Even though he was the son of a president, he had died nobly as a soldier in the service of his country.[3]
Quentin's death was a great personal loss to his father Theodore, who understood quite well that he had encouraged his son's entry into the War.
When the World War II American Cemetery was established in France at Colleville-sur-Mer, Quentin's body was exhumed and moved there. He is buried next to his brother Brigadier General "Ted" Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., who had died of a heart attack in France shortly after leading his troops in landings on Utah Beach on D-Day as Assistant 4th Infantry Division Commander. Quentin's original gravestone is now currently on display at Sagamore Hill. The German-made bassword cross that marked Quentin's original gravesite is on display at the United States Air Force Museum, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton Ohio.
Quentin Roosevelt II (1919-1948), the fourth son of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was named after Quentin, and also died in a plane crash.
[edit] External links
- Short Documentary Clip on Quentin's Death in WWI
- Quentin and his brother Archie and their father Theodore Roosevelt on film during World War I
- USAF Museum
- Photos of the First Pursuit Group
- Captain Eddie Rickenbacker's Account of Quentin's Death during World War I
- http://www.corpusetampois.com/che-20-19170919etatsuniens.html Nine American Squadrons, Online French & English Account of US Army Air Corps Ops in France. German propaganda photo of Quetin's Body beside his crashed airplane]
- Photographic Almanac of Quentin Roosevelt
