A Noble Life Gloriously Ended: July to August 1918

Abstract

In July 1918, Quentin Roosevelt’s pursuit squadron was tasked with engaging and destroying the enemy planes that had been strafing American troops with impunity and also with escorting reconnaissance flights over the lines. During these missions he often had trouble with the balky engine of his Nieuport and fell behind the formation. On July 6, during one of these episodes, he confided to Flora that he was “scared blue” when a “shadow came across his plane” from a German craft that had come up behind and above him, so close that he could see the “red stripes around his fuselage.” Though in an overwhelming position of advantage to down Quentin, the German pilot miraculously did not attack and went back to his formation.¹ When the tables were turned five days later, Quentin showed no such mercy. He wrote in “Great Excitement” to his fiancée that he believed he had at last “got a Boche yesterday.” He had been out on a patrol of 15 planes but got separated from them and then came upon 3 planes he thought were American but that on closer inspection turned out to be a German formation that did not notice him.