In Memory of Quentin
Roosevelt's Youngest Child, Fallen in Battle
On this day in 1918, Second Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt was killed in action in World War I, shot down by enemy pilots in a dogfight over France. He was twenty years old and is to date the only child of a US president to be killed in combat.
The fifth child and youngest son of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt, Quentin was born November 19, 1897, in Washington, D.C., while Roosevelt was serving as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Known as “Quenty-quee” or “Quinikins” when he was small, Quentin quickly developed a reputation for cunning and mischief. This delighted Theodore, who was something of a big boy himself. Even the more restrained Edith, who once referred to Quentin as a “fine bad little boy,” found herself charmed by the rambunctious child – and his equally mischievous friends.
When Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the presidency, Quentin was just under four years old. By the time of Roosevelt’s second term, when Quentin was seven years old, he had become the leader of a group of roughhousing prankster boys known as the “White House Gang.” In addition to Quentin, the group was composed of the boys from several prominent families of Washington, D.C., including (but not limited to):
Quentin’s brother Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt (“Archie”);
Charles (“Charlie” or “Taffy”) Phelps Taft II, son of William Howard Taft, Governor-General of the Philippines and then Secretary of War during this period;
Bromley (“Brom”) Seeley, stepson of lawyer John A. Kratz, of the firm Leckie, Cox, & Kratz;
Richard Smith (“Dick” or “Sailor”) Chew, son of Robert Smith Chew III, businessman associated with banking and real estate
Edward (“Bedstead” or “Slats”) Stead, great-grandson son of Peter Force, historian and 12th Mayor of Washington, D.C., namesake of the Force School the boys attended;
Walker White, grandson of Brigadier General Horatio Gates Gibson;
Reginald Earle (“Look”) Looker, son of civil engineer and surveyor Henry Brigham Looker;
and, honorifically, Theodore Roosevelt himself
In 1929, Earle Looker published a memoir about his adventures with the White House Gang, not only remembering their most famous antics, but also telling many of their stories for the first time. Looker paints Quentin (whom he refers to primarily as “Q”) as almost reckless in his pursuit of antics, but also as caring and thoughtful when things go wrong. He attributes this to sometimes stern but always fair lectures from his father, often directed as much at all of the boys as to Quentin himself. Looker also remarks that Quentin was eager to use his wide vocabulary of both grandiloquent words from high literature and nonsense words from joke books. Intellectual, passionate, cunning, and adventurous, Quentin was very much his father’s son.
From an early age, Quentin was fascinated by “anything mechanical,” as his father noted in a 1911 letter, and especially aviation. While attending the Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia, he wrote a creative essay titled “A Trip on an Airship.” On a summer vacation in 1909, Quentin attended the world’s first international aviation meet with his family, an eight-day air show near Reims, France, titled Grande Semaine d’Aviation de la Champagne. He was enthralled by the sights. Writing a letter to a friend back home, Quentin related the magic:
You don’t know how pretty it was to see all the aeroplanes sailing at a time. At one time there were 4 aeroplanes in the air. It was the prettiest thing I ever saw. The prettiest one of the ones was a monoplane called the Antoinette which looks like a great big bird in the air – it does not wiggle at all and goes very fast. It is awfully pretty turning.
In his book Quentin & Flora: A Roosevelt and Vanderbilt in Love during the Great War, author Chip Bishop argues that Quentin channeled his attraction to aeroplanes into a practical penchant for mechanics. “There seemed always to be a motorcycle to fix or an auto engine to tune or, later, a propeller to adjust or a fleet of military vehicles to manage.”
Quentin shared not only a thrill-seeking nature with his father but also skill with the pen. He had begun composing poetry when he was small, dictating a poem about a dream he had to his mother when he was just five years old. During his years at Groton School, a preparatory boarding school in Massachusetts where his three brothers and his cousin Franklin had gone before him, he developed a reputation for composing both poetry and prose. His writing prowess and dedication eventually earned him the distinction of serving as the press editor of the school’s monthly magazine, The Grotonian. Quentin was in that role when the Great War broke out, and he used his bully pulpit to the fullest, promoting preparedness and intervention in a manner equally as zealous as his father’s column in the Kansas City Star.
Following his graduation from Groton in 1915, Quentin began attending Harvard, where he continued to develop his intellectual abilities. It was also during this time – exactly how and when has been lost to history – that he first became acquainted with Flora Payne Whitney, the high-society daughter of sculptor and art collector Gertrude Vanderbilt and thoroughbred horse breeder Harry Payne Whitney. Throughout his time at Harvard and later at war, Quentin and Flora maintained a largely long-distance but deeply loving relationship. They planned to marry, but it never came to pass.
In 1915, General Leonard Wood – a friend of the Roosevelts, having been Theodore’s commanding officer in the Spanish-American War – visited Harvard to promote his summer military training camp in Plattsburgh, New York. Quentin and his brother, Archie, enrolled wholeheartedly and, in 1916, they took an additional training course, joined this time by Ted and Kermit as well. Quentin also engaged in ROTC drills during his time at Harvard. He did not always enjoy military training, but powered through it out of a sense of duty both to his country and to his father. In 1917, following the United States’ entry into World War I, Quentin left school to train as a pilot, and in quick succession, he enlisted and was then commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. Before the summer was over, he had been deployed to the Issoudun Aerodrome in France.
Brave to the point of recklessness, quite like his father, Quentin was eager to see battle. He finally got his wish in June of 1918 when he was sent to the front to join the 1st Pursuit Group. On the 24th, he was assigned to the 95th Aero Squadron, and on July 10th, he engaged in aerial combat for the first time. Facing three German combatants over the Champagne sector that he initially mistook for Americans, Quentin shot down one of the enemies’ planes and escaped. Sadly, his luck ran out just a few days later. On July 14th (Bastille Day), 1918, Quentin was on a routine patrol flight in a formation of five over Chamery in his Nieuport 28. They were soon beset upon by seven enemies, and a dogfight ensued. His vision obscured by sun and clouds, one of the German pilots (it is debated who) was able to take an effective shot at him. Quentin was struck twice in the head by machine gun fire, and his plane plummeted to the ground.
Quentin Roosevelt, just twenty years old and only having seen active combat for a few days, was buried by the Germans where he fell with full military honors and a makeshift wooden cross. The grave soon became a shrine, with additional crosses, a headstone, floral arrangements, and even a small fence. Relics were taken, including pieces of the plane’s wing, and many are now housed in museums. In 1955, when the World War II American Cemetery was established in Normandy, Quentin and his brother Ted (who died of a heart attack a few weeks after D-Day) were reinterred there together.
Theodore Roosevelt was deeply devastated by the death of his youngest (and arguably his favorite) son and became more private in the weeks following Quentin’s death. His mental health never really recovered, exacerbating the ongoing decline of his physical health. A weary Roosevelt died in his sleep on January 6, 1919.
Sad to know of one dying so young. I have read a book about his brother Ted Jr. he was on the ground in D Day with a cane. Very determined!
I hope all this data will be at the TR library in Medora ND.