Today is the 100th anniversary of the wartime death of Lt. Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son of former President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt.
Lt. Roosevelt, 20, was shot down behind German lines on July 14, 1918 by a German ace as Roosevelt piloted his Nieuport 28 at Chamery near Coulonges-en-Tardenois in France, according to the website of the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Fairborn.
The museum has the cross fashioned for Lt. Roosevelt’s grave by U.S. troops, as well as other items related to him.
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The Germans had buried Roosevelt, a pilot in the 95th Aero Squadron, at the crash site and marked it with a cross made from basswood saplings and wire from his plane.
U.S. troops found his grave after German’s retreated and made a new cross for it.
His remains were later exhumed and buried at St. Laurent-sur-Mer beside his brother, Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who died of a heart attack in Normandy after the World War II D-Day invasion of France, according to the museum website.
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