Inspired by his father and siblings, he joined the United States Army Air Service where he became a pursuit pilot during World War I and shot down one German aircraft.

The Secret Service were alarmed to see a fire and smoke behind the White House, only to see Quentin with a makeshift brick chimney baking some potatoes.

Theodore campaigned vigorously on behalf of the 1916 Republican presidential nominee, Charles Evans Hughes, during which he severely criticized Woodrow Wilson.

Quentin came to agree with his father, writing to Flora in early 1917 from Harvard University, where he was studying: "We are a pretty sordid lot, aren't we, to want to sit looking on while England and France fight our battles and pan gold into our pockets."

In 1915, Major General Leonard Wood, a friend of Theodore Roosevelt since the Rough Rider days, organized a summer camp at Plattsburgh, New York, to provide military training for business and professional men at their own expense.

It would be this summer training program that would provide the basis of a greatly expanded junior officers corps when the country entered World War I.

During August 1915, many well-heeled young men from some of the finest East Coast schools, including Quentin Roosevelt and two of his brothers, attended the camp.

After the declaration of war, when the American Expeditionary Force was organizing, Theodore wired Major General John J. Pershing and volunteered to form a division and have his sons accompany him to Europe as privates.

Finally sent to France, Lieutenant Roosevelt first helped in setting up the large Air Service training base at Issoudun.

Four days later, in a massive aerial engagement at the commencement of the Second Battle of the Marne, he was himself shot down behind German lines.

Since the plane had crashed so near the front lines, they used two pieces of basswood saplings, bound together with wire from his Nieuport, to fashion a cross for his grave.

[8] However, this was met with shock in Germany, which still held Theodore Roosevelt in high respect and was impressed that a former president's son died on active duty.

[citation needed] Leutnant Christian Donhauser of Jasta 17 claimed credit and publicized himself as Quentin's killer after the war.

[citation needed] Sergeant Carl Graeper of Jasta 50 also claimed credit, but if he did fire the fatal shots, it was his only kill during the war.

About a half a mile away I saw one of our planes with three Boche on him, and he seemed to be having a pretty hard time with them, so I shook the two I was maneuvering with and tried to get over to him, but before I could reach him, his machine turned over on its back and plunged down out of control.

I realized it was too late to be of any assistance and as none of our machines were in sight, I made for a bank of clouds to try to gain altitude on the Huns, and when I came back out, they had reformed, but there were only six of them, so I believe we must have gotten one.

After a stubborn flight, one of the pilots – Lieutenant Roosevelt, – who had shown conspicuous bravery during the fight by attacking again and again without regard to danger, was shot in the head by his more experienced opponent and fell at Chamery.

128133 [German] Army Corps Headquarters The 24th of July, 1918/ Edition including even the Companies, except those which are just now on the front lines, and which will be only mentioned after their relief/ Sheet of Information, No.

A clipping from the Kölnische Zeitung obtained through the Spanish Embassy gave this account of the fight: The aviator of the American Squadron, Quentin Roosevelt, in trying to break through the airzone over the Marne, met the death of a hero.

The principal feature of the battle consisted in an air duel between the American and a German fighting pilot named Sergeant Greper.

After a few shots the plane apparently got out of his control; the American began to fall and struck the ground near the village of Chamery, about ten kilometers north of the Marne.

The German pilot who shot down Quentin Roosevelt told me of counting twenty bullet holes in his machine when he landed after the fight.

He thus describes the scene: In a hollow square about the open grave were assembled approximately one thousand German soldiers, standing stiffly in regular lines.

At its head was a wooden cross, on which was printed: Following the custom that sprang up in the chivalrous environment of the air services, the broken propeller blades and bent and scarred wheels of the plane were marking his resting-place.

The engineer regiment of the division that had retaken Chamery marked the spot where the airplane fell, and raised a cross at the grave with the inscription Here rests on the field of honor Quentin Roosevelt Air Service U.S.A.

The French placed an oaken enclosure with a head-born reading: Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt Escadrille 95 Tombé glorieusement En combat aerien Le 14 Juillet 1918 Pour le droit Et la liberté English:Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt Squadron 95 Fallen gloriously In aerial combat 14 July 1918 For right And liberty After his grave came under Allied control, thousands of American soldiers visited it to pay their respects.

In 1955, eleven years after the World War II American Cemetery was established in France at Colleville-sur-Mer, Quentin's body was exhumed and moved there.

Quentin's remains were moved in order to be buried next to his eldest brother Ted, who had died of a heart attack in France in 1944, shortly after leading his troops in landings on Utah Beach on D-Day as Assistant 4th Infantry Division Commander (an act which would earn him the Medal of Honor).

[10] On Sainte-Marie-à-Py the Aux Morts des Armées de Champagne monument was made in 1923 by sculptor Maxime Real del Sarte.

The French village Sancy-les-Cheminots in Aisne remembers Quentin Roosevelt in its Jardin de souvenir (Garden of remembrance).