First Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt

Early Life

Quentin Roosevelt was born at 1735 N Street in Washington, D.C. at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, November 19, 1897. His parents were Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt and his wife, Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. The youngest Roosevelt child, Quentin had five siblings: Alice, Theodore, Jr. “Ted,” Kermit, Ethel, and Archibald “Archie.” He was the only Roosevelt child born in Washington, D.C.

Quentin’s name came from his great-grandfather, Isaac Quentin Carow, who was a French Huguenot. Quentin was christened on Thursday, December 23, 1897, which was attended by friends and family, including his father’s long-time friend, Henry Cabot Lodge.

Moving to the White House

As a young child, Quentin had the same nurse as his mother, Edith, in her “babyhood.” The nurse’s name was Mary Ledwith, whom the family called Mame. Mame accompanied the family to the White House when Theodore became president on September 14, 1901, after William McKinley’s assassination. Quentin was just three years old.

For the next seven-and-a-half years, Quentin called the White House home during his father’s presidency from 1901 to 1909. He was known for his antics in the White House. He participated in pillow fights and “bear play” with his father and his siblings. 

However, like his father, Quentin sometimes struggled with asthma as a child. When he had an episode, his father would tell him stories and hum songs “in a hoarse murmur,” according to a 1901 letter to Alice Roosevelt.

Life at the White House

From a young age, Theodore told Quentin many stories, including ranching stories from his time in the Dakota Territory. The president also often read to Quentin and his brother Archie for close to an hour in the evenings. 

Quentin began writing poetry from a young age. He continued this custom as a young adult. One early poem—written when Quentin was eight years old—was about a goblin. The first line read, “When I went to sleep at night/In my little bed/I dreampt [sic] I saw a goblin/Standing near my head.” 

Quentin expressed an interest in the military from a young age. When he was five years old, he wanted to be a sailor and serve in the Navy. As one 1902 newspaper article noted, Quentin was “frequently seen with navy officers who visit the White House.”

Besides spending time with adults at the White House, Quentin had his own group of friends, known as the White House Gang, who regularly got into trouble. Once, when he was 10, Quentin and three of his friends shot spitballs at portraits in the White House. When Theodore discovered the spitballs, he pulled Quentin out of bed and made him take the spitballs off every portrait.

Quentin’s antics in the White House extended to the classroom. When his teacher, Virginia J. Arnold, at the Force School, mentioned issues she was having with him in school, like dancing into the classroom, Theodore encouraged her to punish him. The president’s recommendation was, “If he brings play toys to school, confiscate them and keep them.”

Although Quentin enjoyed his time at the White House, he always preferred life at the family home at Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Theodore wrote in a 1904 letter that Quentin, his brother Archie, and his sister Ethel were “so delighted that they were to be out in the country at their home that all grief at the parting from their parents was swallowed up.”

Becoming a Young Adult

Like his older brothers, Quentin attended Groton School just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, for middle school and high school. During his second year at Groton, Quentin made the honor roll. He served as an editor for the school newspaper, The Grotonian. He contributed articles including, “On the Train” and “‘One Man With a Dream.’”

As Quentin got older, he became more interested in mechanics. As an eight-year-old, he and his brother Archie rode in the engine car of a train from Oyster Bay to Mineola on Long Island, New York. By the time Quentin was a teenager, the family recognized his abilities. As Theodore wrote in a 1911 letter to his sister Bamie, “Quentin is an affectionate, soft-hearted, over-grown-puppy kind of a boy, absorbed in his wireless and in anything mechanical.”

Quentin graduated from Groton in 1915 and was admitted to Harvard University like his father and all of his brothers. In November 1915, Quentin was appointed one of three managers of the Harvard University freshman football team. 

He did not graduate from Harvard but left early to join the war effort. After his death, Quentin was posthumously awarded a degree from Harvard in 1919, the year he would have graduated.

Homefront

Oyster Bay

Quentin Roosevelt was part of several communities throughout his life—Washington, D.C., when his father was president; Groton, Massachusetts, when he was in middle school and high school; and Cambridge, Massachusetts, when he was at college. 

Although he graduated in 1915 from Groton School, he continued to be involved in the Grotonian community, sending a poem, “Reverie,” from his wartime post in 1917 following a request for content from the editors of the school newspaper, The Grotonian, to Grotonians serving in the war.

Quentin considered Oyster Bay on Long Island, as his home community. Oyster Bay, Long Island, was a place where society elites lived. After Theodore Roosevelt built the family home, Sagamore Hill, in the 1880s, the area blossomed into an area for estates, with 131 homes being built alone in the 1890s.

Just before the war in 1910, Nassau County, where Oyster Bay was located, had 89,930 inhabitants. Demographically, Long Island was predominantly White, but there was some ethnic diversity, with significant numbers of Irish, Italian, and Polish Catholics.

Nassau County’s Aviation Heritage

Nassau County was a major American center for training aviators as well as building military aircraft. Hazelhurst Field and Mitchel Field on the Hempstead Plains trained Army aviators. Companies built military aircraft on Long Island in Nassau County at Sperry and Breese in Farmingdale, Orenco in Baldwin, and Lowe Williard & Fowler (L.W.F.) at College Point near Queens.

Quentin Roosevelt began his flight training at Camp Mills, located in Nassau County in Mineola, New York. Less than 30 minutes from Sagamore Hill, it was a temporary camp in 1917 but became more permanent, serving as both an active port of embarkation and later debarkation after Armistice Day.

After Quentin learned to fly a plane at Mineola, he liked to fly over Sagamore Hill. On one occasion, when there was a large gathering of people, Quentin did a number of “stunts” with his airplane. His father did not realize initially that the pilot was his son.

Long Island’s Contribution to the War Effort

Long Island and the state of New York were instrumental in the war effort, from supplying soldiers, sending supplies overseas, and raising war bonds. New York contributed more soldiers to the war effort than any other state, supplying 367,864 men or 9.79 percent of the force. The second highest number of soldiers came from Pennsylvania at under 300,000.

During the war, many Long Islanders heeded the message to plant food and set up local canneries to send supplies overseas to support troops. In Hicksville, 100 cans were preserved daily, ranging from string beans to Swiss chard, and gooseberry to raisin jam. One village on Long Island, Stony Brook, even sent 20,000 pounds of jam to France!

Finally, it helped to have a former president residing on Long Island. Quentin’s father, Theodore Roosevelt, used his prestige as Oyster Bay’s most famous resident and spoke several times from the stage at the Lyric Theatre on Audrey Avenue in Oyster Bay in support of the local war bond drives.

Military Experience

Preparing for Military Service

While a student at Harvard College, Quentin Roosevelt participated in a military training camp in Plattsburgh, New York, over two summers in 1915 and 1916 with his brother Archie. The goal was to prepare soon-to-be college graduates to become officers.

At the end of the summer, participants were graded based on their qualifications to become officers. As Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his son Kermit on August 8, 1915, “Quentin’s certificate read that he had done good work and that with more age and experience he would make an excellent Second Lieutenant.”

During the second summer in July 1916, Quentin accidentally dropped his rifle and was punished by the acting sergeant, his brother Archie. Quentin was put on the blacklist for three days, forced to stay in camp to pick up refuse from the company street, according to a New York Times article.

Joining the Military

Quentin completed the application for examination for a commission on April 19, 1917, listing his Plattsburgh camp experience and his experience with gas engines and wireless. General P.M. Rixey, in his letter recommending Quentin for military service, also confirmed he “had considerable experience with Gasoline Engines & radio apparatus.”

On April 23, 1917, Roosevelt enlisted at Aviation Station, Mineola, Long Island, and reported for duty on April 25, 1917. After several months serving as a sergeant and receiving additional training, he was commissioned as an officer in the Aviation Section of the Signal Officers’ Reserve Corps as a first lieutenant on July 7, 1917. He swore the oath of office in Washington, D.C.

Although Roosevelt’s name was spelled correctly on official paperwork, his name on his dog tag was misspelled as “Quintin.” After briefly being stationed at Fort Wood, New York, during the summer of 1917, he left the United States on the S.S. Orduna on July 23, 1917, from New York City. He landed in Liverpool, England, on August 8, 1917, and was assigned to the Issoudun School in France on August 16, 1917.

Roosevelt was eager to get flying orders and fight the enemy from the skies, but it took some time for him to get to the front. He received special orders on October 30, 1917, to proceed to the 3^rd Aviation Instruction Center in Paris, France.

Assigned to the 1^st Pursuit Group

On May 30, 1918, Roosevelt and several others, including his friend Hamilton Coolidge, received new special orders to proceed to Orly, Department Sine, France for aviation duty. On June 12, 1918, he headed to the front “to proceed from Chartres to Toul for assignment to duty and station with 1^st Pursuit Group.”

In a June 18, 1918 letter to his fiancée, Flora Whitney, he wrote, “At last almost eleven months after I left the states, I’m doing what I came over here for, out at the front.” On June 24, 1918, he was assigned to the 95^th Aero Squadron.

On July 10, 1918, Roosevelt engaged in aerial combat with five enemy planes in the Champagne sector and brought down one enemy plane. In a letter to Flora on July 11, 1918, he wrote, “Great excitement! I think I got a Boche yesterday.”

As Colonel R. O. Van Horn wrote in Roosevelt’s official record: “When the order assigning [Roosevelt] to duty with a squadron finally came on June 24^th [1918], he lost no time in reporting and arrived just in time to take part in the last great enemy offensive where the combat work by his squadron was most strenuous and aided materielly [sic] in the success of the battle.”

Unfortunately, Roosevelt’s time in combat lasted less than a week after his first kill. On July 14, 1918, Roosevelt and a patrol of 12 planes from the 1^st Pursuit Group, 95^th Aero Squadron, left on a mission to protect an Army Corps photographic section operating between Chateau-Thierry and Dormans. He was flying airplane no. 14 of the 95^th Aero Squadron.

The patrol saw seven enemy planes and attacked them. The clouds were over a mile high. The engagement between the American and German planes lasted ten minutes. When the patrol returned to the base, Quentin Roosevelt and his plane did not return.

Gone Missing

Lieutenant Buford, a member of the squadron, reported “that he thought he saw one Nieuport plane fall out of the combat and into the clouds.” The plane was in a vertical dive for a little under half a mile. According to Captain Philip Roosevelt, the plane “was not in flame, nor was it spinning.” Quentin Roosevelt was reported missing that day by Captain David M. Peterson of the 95^th Aero Squadron.

Three days later on July 17, 1918, Theodore Roosevelt received a telegram from General John J. Pershing, who reported that his son was missing. In the ensuing days, the American military overseas worked to determine whether Quentin Roosevelt was missing or had been killed.

Commemoration

Confirmed Dead

On July 22, 1918, the American Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland received official confirmation from the German Red Cross in Berlin, Germany, of Quentin Roosevelt’s death. Theodore Roosevelt received a telegram on July 27, 1918, confirming his son’s death. German troops buried the remains and notified the Red Cross recognizing he was the son of the former president.

The grave was located near Chamery, France (exact location: 33 SE E 200.62 N 273.81). On August 19, 1918, the International Red Cross in Geneva wrote to Lieutenant Colonel Hiram Bingham that the German Aviation Inspection reported that Quentin’s grave was “marked by a wooden cross with his name inscribed.” Soon thereafter, American troops took the area and replaced the cross.

Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Edith wanted Quentin to remain interred overseas. The former president wrote to General P. C. March on October 25, 1918, “We have always believed that ‘Where the tree falls, There let it lie.’”

An inventory of Quentin Roosevelt’s personal effects was taken before returning them to his family. Quentin’s friend, Hamilton Coolidge, inventoried his personal effects back at the base and submitted the list to the commanding officer of the unit, David M. Peterson, on July 18, 1918. 

Quentin’s personal effects included a large book entitled Home Book of Verses, six manilla envelopes containing letters likely from his family and his fiancée, Flora, and one gold good luck emblem—among the standard items assigned to service members.

Captain F. W. Zinn of the Air Service informed Edith Roosevelt in a memo dated April 23, 1919, that the Berlin Central Effects Depot obtained the following personal effects from Quentin’s body: 2.60 francs, one wallet, letters, one key, one watch, photographs, one identification tag with chain, and one locket.

Honoring Quentin’s Legacy

Newspapers across the United States and the world reported Quentin Roosevelt’s death. Letters of support poured into the Roosevelts’ home at Sagamore Hill.

Quentin posthumously received the French Croix de Guerre with a Palm from the French government. The citation reads, “An excellent pursuit pilot, possessing the finest qualities of courage and devotion. On July 10, 1918, after a fight with five enemy airplanes, he brought down one of his adversaries. He met his death gloriously in an aerial combat, on July 14, 1918.”

In another recognition of Quentin’s legacy, the American flag was flown at half-mast at a local park in Quentin’s hometown of Oyster Bay. Below the American flag was a service flag with 321 stars in recognition of each local citizen serving in the war. A gold star—the only one—was on the border for Quentin.

On September 24, 1918, locals requested to rename an airfield on Long Island in Hempstead Plains “Roosevelt Field” in Quentin’s honor. During the interwar years, Roosevelt Field saw significant airplane traffic and served as the country’s largest civilian airport. After 1950, it was developed into a shopping mall which still stands today.

How the Roosevelts Remembered Quentin

Quentin’s death was a tragedy to the entire Roosevelt family, perhaps impacting Theodore the most. The former president died less than six months after Quentin at the age of 60 on January 6, 1919. 

Shortly after her husband’s death, Edith visited Quentin’s grave to pay her respects, which led to the Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages for mothers and widows.

Even after Quentin’s death, the Roosevelt family kept their personal service flag with four blue stars indicating the military service of their four sons that they had displayed in their home. They donated it to Harvard University, where researchers can view it in the Houghton Library Reading Room.

Quentin left his death benefits to his sister Ethel’s son, Richard Derby, Jr., one of his nephews with whom he was particularly close. There were several examples of young Richard seeing a plane and thinking it was Uncle Quentin in 1917 and 1918.

In September 1918, Ethel received Quentin’s death benefits on Richard’s behalf, noting in a letter to her father: “Quentin’s insurance papers came. It is a very priceless legacy for Richard.”

Reinterred by His Brother

As the years went by, Quentin’s grave fell into disrepair. After World War II, the Roosevelt family requested that Quentin’s body be reinterred next to Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt Jr., Quentin’s brother, who had died a month after the D-Day landings, at Normandy American Cemetery.

On September 22, 1955, Quentin’s remains were reburied beside his brother at Normandy American Cemetery. He is the only service member from World War I to be buried there.

Bibliography

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This profile was researched and created through the Researching Silent Heroes program, sponsored by the American Battle Monuments Commission.