Roosevelt Jr. Dies in Normandy After D-Day Heroics

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. carried a cane and a pistol onto Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, the oldest man in the first wave at age fifty-six. His arthritis was so severe he could barely walk, and a heart condition should have kept him off the invasion entirely. He had requested permission to land with his troops four times before General Raymond Barton finally relented, reportedly saying that Roosevelt's presence would steady the men more than any tactical advantage his absence might provide. When the landing craft deposited his men on the wrong section of beach, a mile south of the intended target, Roosevelt surveyed the terrain, made a decision on the spot, and told his officers: "We'll start the war from right here." He spent the rest of D-Day directing traffic under fire, walking up and down the beach organizing units that had landed in confusion, his cane in one hand and his pistol in the other. His calm under fire was credited with preventing a catastrophic bottleneck that could have turned Utah Beach into another Omaha. The contrast between the two beaches was stark — Utah suffered fewer than 200 casualties compared to Omaha's estimated 2,000, and historians have attributed much of that difference to the rapid reorganization Roosevelt improvised on the sand. He had served with distinction in World War I as well, winning the Distinguished Service Cross in France and leading troops through some of the war's bloodiest engagements. Between the wars he served as Governor of Puerto Rico and later as Governor-General of the Philippines, positions that reflected both his family's political connections and his own administrative competence. He earned a posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions at Utah Beach, making the Roosevelts one of only two father-son pairs to both receive the Medal of Honor — his father, President Theodore Roosevelt, received his posthumously in 2001 for the charge at San Juan Hill. He died of a heart attack in Normandy on July 12, 1944, just five weeks after the landing. He is buried at the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, next to his brother Quentin, who was killed in aerial combat in World War I.