24/02/2025
The life of Brigadier General Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt Jr.
There are 9,388 gravestones at the American Normandy Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. The grave of Brigadier General Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt is one of the most visited graves, if not the most visited grave, at least judging by the size of the trampled grass area in front of the gravestones.
Why is that? Is it because of his rank, Brigadier General? I don't think so, because the graves of Lieutenant General Lesley N. McNair (the highest-ranking soldier in the US Army to die in World War II) or Brigadier General Nelson M. Walker don't have these bare patches in front of the headstone.
So what is it? Is it the name of the Roosevelt family, known far beyond the borders of the United States, or is it the extraordinary achievements as a soldier that even earned him the Medal of Honor (he is one of three Medal of Honor recipients buried in this cemetery)? Or is it the fact that his younger brother Quentin Roosevelt is buried next to Teddy? Hmm, probably not. After all, there are forty-five pairs of brothers commemorated or buried in the cemetery, including 33 who are buried side by side. So in that respect, the Roosevelt brothers are hardly unique.
I believe that the first two factors play the most important role. To shed more light on this question and perhaps provide some answers, here is a short biography of “Teddy” Roosevelt Jr.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was born on 13 November 1887 at the family estate in Oyster Bay Cove, New York, just as his father was beginning his political career. He had three brothers, Archibald (Archie), Quentin and Kermit; a sister, Ethel; and a half-sister, Alice. Like all the Roosevelt children, the bespectacled, studious Ted was greatly influenced by his father and sought his approval. His father, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States serving two terms from 1901 to 1909.
Theodore Jr. proved to be a shrewd businessman, working in the steel and carpet industries before venturing onto Wall Street, where he amassed a fortune of about $7 million. Ted married Eleanor Butler Alexander in June 1910 and they had four children - Grace, Theodore III, Cornelius and Quentin II.
Towards the end of the First World War, as the American Expeditionary Force prepared to head for France, Theodore Roosevelt Sr, who had left the White House in 1909 but was still a well-known and popular figure, wrote to the AEF commander, General John J Pershing, asking if his sons could join the AEF. Archibald was given a commission as a second lieutenant, while Theodore Jr. was offered the rank of major. Quentin was accepted into the new Air Service of the Army Signal Corps and Kermit volunteered to serve with the British Army in Mesopotamia.
Shortly after President Woodrow Wilson declared war, Ted was called up and volunteered to be one of the first soldiers to go to France. He sailed in June 1917 with the hastily formed 1st Infantry Division (Big Red One). The division was commanded by Major General William L Sibert and disembarked at Bordeaux. Teddy joined the 26th Infantry Regiment, stationed in a town called Demange-aux-Eaux. He was put in charge of a battalion and quickly showed himself to be a fierce warrior and a skilful leader, just like his father. He bravely led his battalion across fields outside the town of Cantigny in May 1918 to fill a gap in the American lines, and took part in the momentous Meuse-Argonne offensive from August to November 1918.
Ted was gassed and wounded twice at Soissons (north-east of Paris) in the summer of 1918. Meanwhile, his brother Quentin had been killed in action that July. Ted was eventually promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, given command of the division's 26th Regiment and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, Croix de Guerre, Legion of Honour and Purple Heart.
At the end of the war, Teddy left the service to pursue a political career. Elected to the New York State Assembly in 1919, he participated in every national campaign except when he served later as governor-general of the Philippines. When Warren G. Harding was elected president in 1921, Ted was appointed assistant secretary of the Navy, a post that had also been held by his father and his cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In September 1929, President Herbert Hoover chose Ted to be governor of Puerto Rico. Hoover was so impressed with Ted's performance there that he appointed him Governor-General of the Philippines in 1932. His colonial career ended, however, when his cousin Franklyn Delano Roosevelt challenged Hoover for the presidency in 1932. When FDR was elected, Ted humorously described himself as "the fifth cousin about to be removed".
As war loomed in Europe in the late 1930s, Ted Roosevelt saw an opportunity for challenge and glory on the battlefield. He was now in his 50s, with a weak heart and nagging arthritis from his wounds in the First World War, which forced him to use a cane.
After completing a military refresher course in 1940, he asked General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, to take him out of the reserves and return him to active duty. In April 1941, with the rank of colonel, he was given command of his old unit, the 26th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division. He was soon promoted to brigadier general.
After some training in the USA, the Big Red One left New York for the European Theater of Operations on August 1, 1942, on board of the converted liner Queen Mary and sailed to Scotland. From there it was sent by rail to England to undergo advanced training under its commander, Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen. Theodore became his assistant commander.
On November 8, 1942, the Big Red One participated in Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North-Africa. The Big Red One was the spearhead of the Central Task Force, and its objective was the Algerian port of Oran.
Roosevelt’s 26th Regiment entered Oran on November 10 and went on to clear the Ouseltia Valley in January 1943, and on to positions at Kasserine Pass the following month. The 26th Regiment saw plenty of action against Rommel’s Afrika Korps, the Big Red One was actively engaged in Tunisia until May 9, 1943.
Ted's reputation as a hard-fighting front-line general was growing. He and his commanding general, Major General Terry Allen, led the Big Red One in an unorthodox manner. Neither a disciplinarian, the two generals were comfortable among the lowest ranks, had little use for spit and polish, and were rarely seen in regulation uniforms. Ted usually wore a knitted cap because he hated the heavy army helmets. Few World War II generals were as close to their men as Terry Allen and Ted Roosevelt of the Big Red One.
Lieutenant General Patton, the spit-and-polish taskmaster who had striven to shore up flagging American discipline and fighting spirit early in the North African campaign, was not amused, and retribution was imminent for the Big Red One.
The Big Red One next took part in Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily. The division landed at Gela on July 10, 1943, and were immediately in the thick of the fighting. The division fought a series of engagements in rugged terrain and reached the town of Troina in central Sicily on August 1.
During the ensuing battle for Troina, Terry Allen and Teddy Roosevelt were both to be relieved. Patton, then commander of the U.S. 7th Army, regarding both officers as unsoldierly though very brave, had sent derogatory reports to Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Mediterranean theater commander, who had viewed Allen as exhausted in May 1943. He approved the request for their relief, and Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, then commander of the U.S. II Army Corps assumed full responsibility for the action. Bradley considered Allen too much of an individualist, Teddy too close to his men, and the division too full of pride and self-pity and unable to function willingly as part of a larger group. Said Bradley, “Roosevelt had to go with Allen for he, too, had sinned by loving the division too much.”
As the Big Red One left Sicily in October 1943 and landed in England to train in Dorset and Devon for the upcoming Allied invasion of northern France, Allen was given command of the 104th Infantry Division, which would later distinguish itself in Normandy and the Rhineland. Roosevelt, meanwhile, was appointed in December 1943 as the chief U.S. liaison officer between General Mark W. Clark’s 5th Army and the French Expeditionary Corps under General Juin.
In December 1943 Teddy wrote to General Bradley, now promoted to command the U.S. 1st Army, asking for an active role in the planned invasion of northern France, Operation Overlord. He was ordered to England in February 1944 and assigned as supernumerary assistant commander of the untried 4th Infantry Division under Major General Raymond O. “Tubby” Barton. Although this division was already activated in June 1940 it arrived in England only in January 1944. According to Bradley, the 4th Infantry Division was green and it was difficult to anticipate how the men would perform in the amphibious assault on Utah Beach. Bradley reported later. “If Roosevelt could go in with the leading wave, he could steady it as no other man could…Ted was immune to fear.”
So, Bradley assigned Teddy to the 4th Infantry Division as a supernumerary divisional general, which Teddy joined at the end of March 1944.
Unlike Lieutenant General Bradley, the 4th Infantry Division's commanding general and Teddy's immediate superior, Major General Barton had serious reservations about an ailing, 56-year-old general joining the Normandy assault. Barton rejected three verbal requests from Ted, but the Big Red One veteran of two wars persisted, submitting another written request on 26 May. Finally, Barton granted permission.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. sailed in a Higgins Boat with the men of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Regimental Combat Team to land in France. E Company was the first unit to land on Utah Beach, and Ted was the first soldier off his Higgins boat. As he and the other men scrambled through the surf for cover under German beach obstacles, Ted soon realized that the landing craft had drifted more than a mile south of the objective and that the 4th Division's first wave was a mile off course. This was fortunate for E Company as the only opposition was small arms fire from enemy trenches in a sand dune behind a four-foot concrete sea wall. Ted scouted the causeways behind the beach for the division's push inland. Then he conferred with the battalion commanders and the 8th Regiment's commander, Colonel James Van Fleet. "Van," Ted exclaimed, "we're not where we're supposed to be. Roosevelt, whose arthritis forced him to carry a cane when he stormed Utah Beach, then became a D-Day legend for saying, “We’ll start the war from right here!”
Throughout D-Day, despite severe pain in his leg, he rallied the men of the 4th Division to move forward and not to become targets.”
When Major General Barton came ashore, he met Ted near the beach. “I loved Ted,” he said later. “When I finally agreed to his landing with the first wave, I felt sure he would be killed. When I had bade him goodbye, I never expected to see him alive. You can imagine then the emotion with which I greeted him when he came out to meet me. He was bursting with information.”
D-Day was a success for the 4th Division. In 15 hours that day, it landed more than 20,000 men and 1,700 vehicles and rolled swiftly inland. On the second day, Utah Beach received 10,735 men, 1,469 vehicles, and just over 800 tons of supplies. Ted Roosevelt’s inspiring leadership had played a major role in that success.
In the days that followed, the 4th Infantry Division marched inland. First to Ste-Mère-Église, and then north toward Cherbourg.
At the end of June, the 4th Division attacked the strategic port of Cherbourg, where Ted served briefly as military governor. He set up his headquarters in a cellar lit by a single oil lamp, helped restore order to the devastated city, and then pushed on with his troops. But Ted's health caught up with him.
His heart condition was serious, and he knew it. He kept it secret from his wife and from U.S. Army doctors at all costs. Teddy had been feeling unwell for a few days, and his health was not helped by the constant rainy weather in Normandy. His clothes were constantly wet, and despite his new HQ at Meautis, he was not getting much rest.
Then, on July 12, 1944, just five weeks after the D-Day landings, Ted spent a day at the front lines with his men and then went back to his HQ, a converted sleeping truck, captured a few days before from the Germans, at the village of Meautis.
That same day, Ted was delighted to see his son, Quentin Roosevelt II, 24, in the camp. He had been worried about Quentin, a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division, which had been pinned down and mauled on D-Day. They were the only father-and-son team to to take part in the invasion of Normandy.During the meeting, Teddy had confided to his son, that he had suffered a series of head pains that came and went, a condition he had hidden from others.
Late that evening, an hour after Quentin had left, he suffered a heart-attack around 10:00 pm. He lay in his quarters while attendants worked frantically to revive him. At 11:30 pm that night, the 4th Division commander, Tubby Barton, came to see Teddy, and found him barely alive. Later he wrote of the moment to Teddy’s wife. “He was breathing but unconscious when I entered his truck. I sat helpless and saw the most gallant soldier and finest gentleman I have ever known expire. The show goes on. He would have it so and we shall make it so.” Theodore Roosevelt Jr. died shortly before midnight.
General Bradley was in the process of promoting Ted to Major General in command of the 90th Infantry Division. The fighting in Normandy had revealed a number of problems in the leadership of this division, the generals had not shown the decisiveness that Roosevelt had shown at Utah Beach. When the need to replace the leadership of this division became urgent, Teddy's name came up. Although he did not know it, Teddy was about to be promoted to his first divisional command, the 90th Infantry Division.
Radio broadcasts across the country announced his death. “Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt is dead, in Normandy. He died as he would have wished, in the service of his country, a service always closest to his heart.”
Quentin wrote his mother, “The Lion is dead…To me, he was much more than simply a father, he was an amazing combination of father, brother, friend, and comrade in battle.”
The funeral service was conducted in the temporary cemetery No. 2 at Ste. Mère-Église, a few miles west of Utah Beach, on Bastille Day, July 14, 1944. An Army band played “The Son of God Goes Forth to War” as artillery rumbled in the distance. The honorary pallbearers were Generals Bradley, Patton, J. Lawton Collins, Clarence Huebner, Barton, and Courtney H. Hodges. Riflemen fired three volleys, and two buglers sounded taps, echo fashion. Roosevelt was the only soldier to be buried in a coffin in this cemetery.
General Barton recommended that Ted be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on Utah Beach, but this was upgraded at higher headquarters, and the Medal of Honor was posthumously awarded in September 1944. When President Roosevelt handed the blue ribbon to Ted’s widow, he said, “His father would have been proudest.”
Roosevelt’s Medal of Honor citation reads, in part,
"For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, in France…. His valor, courage, and presence in the very front of the attack and his complete unconcern at being under heavy fire inspired the troops to heights of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Although the enemy had the beach under constant direct fire, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt moved from one locality to another, rallying men around him, directed and personally led them against the enemy. Under his seasoned, precise, calm, and unfaltering leadership, assault troops reduced beach strong points and rapidly moved inland with minimum casualties."
General Patton wrote in his diary that Ted Roosevelt was the bravest soldier he ever knew, and General Bradley agreed, “I have never known a braver man nor a more devoted soldier.” Asked several years later to cite the single most heroic action he had seen in combat, Bradley replied, “Ted Roosevelt on Utah Beach.” Ted’s leadership at Utah Beach was recorded in Cornelius Ryan’s best-selling 1959 book, The Longest Day, and he was portrayed by Henry Fonda in Darryl F. Zanuck’s 1962 film epic of the same name.
When Ste-Mère-Église temporary military cemetery No. 2 was closed in the spring of 1948, Ted`s remains were moved to his final resting place, the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. There you can pay your respects to Teddy Roosevelt, who is buried in plot D, row 28, grave 45.
If you wish to read more about Theodore Roosevelt Jr., I recommend the excellent book “His father’s son – The life of Ted Roosevelt Jr.” by Tim Brady.
