National Affairs: Roosevelt

On Bastille Day (July 14), 1918, there were 16 planes nosing in and out of the clouds above a battle sector along the river Marne. Seven were German planes, nine U. S. The shooting, tailspinning and climbing lasted two hours. When the U. S. planes returned behind their lines, they numbered only eight. The pilot-fighter of the missing plane was Lieut. Quentin Roosevelt, not yet 21, son of a fighting U. S. President.

Two days later, the following German wireless message was intercepted by the Allies: “Lieut. Roosevelt, . . . who had shown conspicuous bravery during the fight by attacking again and again without regard to danger, was shot in the head [two bullets] by his more experienced opponent and fell at Chamery.”

Germans—1,000 of them, in spiked helmets, standing at attention—buried Lieut. Roosevelt with full military honors at Chamery.

The death of Lieut. Roosevelt was used to hearten German troops. An official bulletin was distributed. Its headline:

THE SON OF FORMER PRESIDENT OF

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

ROOSEVELT, FOUND DEAD IN AN AERIAL

FIGHT ON THE MARNE

The bulletin added that the flier who had killed Lieut. Roosevelt was Non-Commissioned Officer Greper. Herr Greper received 20 bullet holes in his plane during the fight. He lived through the War, was killed accidentally while delivering planes to the U. S. forces after the Armistice.

Admirers of Killer Greper were made angry, when a German turned up at Hadley Flying Field, N. J., last week, and boasted that he had killed Quentin Roosevelt. The boaster called himself “Captain Jack von Wiegand.” Soon exposed, he ate his boast, whined, “If I really had shot down Quentin Roosevelt, I wouldn’t have come here. I knew how much the name Roosevelt means to the American people.”