Patton wrote in his diary that Roosevelt was one of the bravest men he had ever known. Years later Omar Bradley was asked to name the single most heroic thing he witnessed in all of World War II. He didn't pause. He said, "Ted Roosevelt on Utah Beach."

X.com ^ | July 12, 2026 | Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2

[ransomnote]

Roger Stone reposted

Voices of WW2

@VoicesofWW2

·
Jul 12

On this day in 1944, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. died in his sleep in a stone farmhouse in Normandy. He was 56 years old, and he had spent almost his entire adult life trying to be worthy of a famous last name.

He was the eldest son of President Theodore Roosevelt. In the First World War he went to France and was gassed and badly wounded at Soissons leading his men. That same summer his younger brother Quentin, a pilot, was shot down and killed over France. Ted came home with lungs and a leg that never fully recovered, and before he even left Europe he helped found the American Legion so that ordinary soldiers would have someone looking out for them.

Between the wars he did almost everything. Governor of Puerto Rico. Governor General of the Philippines. Businessman, explorer, writer. He could have spent the Second World War safe behind a desk. Instead, at 54, arthritic and walking with a cane, he talked his way back into uniform and into combat.

By 1943 he was fighting in North Africa and Sicily under Terry Allen, and their loose, unpolished, soldier-first style rubbed General Patton the wrong way. Patton had them both relieved of command. Roosevelt didn't sulk. He asked for another job, any job, as long as it kept him near the fighting. They made him assistant commander of the 4th Infantry Division.

Then came D-Day. He hid a heart condition from the Army doctors. He wrote to his commander three separate times, in writing, begging to go in with the very first wave rather than watch from a ship. He was the only general to land in the first wave on any beach that morning, the oldest man in the invasion, walking through machine gun fire with a cane in one hand and a pistol in the other.

The boats came in a mile off course. Officers froze. Roosevelt limped up and down the beach under fire, studied the ground, and said, "We'll start the war from right here." Then he spent the morning waving men forward and sorting out the chaos so calmly that terrified 20 year olds looked at this old man with a cane and decided that if he wasn't scared, they wouldn't be either.

His son Quentin, named for the uncle killed in the last war, landed at Omaha Beach the same morning. They were the only father and son to come ashore together on D-Day.

He died a month later. A heart attack in his sleep. And here is the part that gets me. On the very day he died, the orders had just come through promoting him to major general and giving him his own division. He never saw the paperwork. He never knew he'd earned the Medal of Honor either.

At his funeral his pallbearers were seven of the most famous generals of the war, Bradley, Hodges, Collins, Barton, Huebner, and George Patton. The same Patton who had fired him. Patton wrote in his diary that Roosevelt was one of the bravest men he had ever known.

Years later Omar Bradley was asked to name the single most heroic thing he witnessed in all of World War II. He didn't pause. He said, "Ted Roosevelt on Utah Beach."

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TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: 0712; 194407; 19440712; dday; godsgravesglyphs; omahabeach; roosevelt; rooseveltjr; tedroosevelt; theodorerooseveljr; theodorerooseveltjr; utahbeach; wwii

[ransomnote]

One more reason we made it to America's 250 Birthday:

 According to Wiki:

Omar Nelson Bradley (12 February 1893 – 8 April 1981) was a senior officer of the United States Army during and after World War II, rising to the rank of General of the Army. He was the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and oversaw the U.S. military's policy-making in the Korean War.

[mairdie]

What a wonderful story. So very glad you posted it.

[Hebrews 11:6]

The Longest Day got it substantially correct.

[lepton]

At US entry into WWII, Bradley was 48.
Patton was old at 54.
Eisenhower was 49.

[rlmorel]

From what I have heard, I have to agree. He didn’t have to be there. But he was.

[Inyo-Mono]

I didn’t know the full story, thanks for posting!

[The Duke]

One of my bigger bucket list items is to author the book “The Other Roosevelts” that tells the stories of TR’s offspring.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

That would be awesome.

Occationally you hear about Alice but almost nothing about the rest.

[Nervous Tick]

Thank you for posting this moving tribute to a brave man I regret I never knew about until today.

[Dr. Franklin]

And since TR, Jr. was the only general on the beach, Omar Bradley didn’t actually witness him there on D-Day. He just heard about it later.

[BipolarBob]

Thanks for posting.

[SisterK]

Wow
thank you for posting

[Freedom4US]

One of the Roosevelt spawn was a spook for the CIA iirc, jetting around Iran and getting in all sorts of mischief

[jocon307]

That is an amazing story!

[griffin]

EXCELLENT!

[The Duke]

One of my bigger bucket list items is to author the book “The Other Roosevelts” that tells the stories of TR’s offspring.

[rlmorel]

One of the things they found out early on in the war was that they had to get rid of the old guys. There were a lot of command officers in the South Pacific both ashore and at sea in all branches who simply could not stand up to the stress of command at war. I recall reading that when this became an evident trend, they began to move all of the graybeards out of direct combat commands.

Nimitz was 60 when the war ended, and he was the exception, as were a few others. Heck, Halsey began to make some serious mistakes as the war was coming to its conclusion, with his bad judgment at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, compounded by Typhoon Cobra shortly thereafter, and then again when he made poor decisions regarding Typhoon Connie in June 1945 and got more men killed and damaged ships, including the USS Portland which lost her bow.

IIRC, Admiral King was livid and wanted Halsey relieved of command and courtmartialed, and Nimitz was pretty upset too, but they realized Halsey was still a hero to many, and Admiral John "Slew" McCain (John McCain's grandfather) voluntarily fell on his sword and graciously took the punishment for Halsey. Admiral McCain stayed in the Pacific long enough to attend the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri, then flew home the next day. I think he hadn't been home once since the war began.

They had a welcome home party for him the night he got home, and he suffered a massive heart attack and died. Wow. He was only 61, but in the picture below, he looked about 80.

He lived hard, swore hard, smoked hard, and drank hard, as many of those men did.

By all accounts, his men adored him.

They called him "Popeye" due to his weathered looks and his beat up, nasty hat with the scrambled eggs that had turned green with age and corrosion. It was his "lucky hat", and it was said that one time when it blew off his head on the flight deck, a crewman nearly went over the side trying to retrieve it, they loved him that much. (That hat now resides at the Phi Delta Theta (his college fraternity) Museum in Oxford, OH.)

Halsey (who was a bit of a prissy "bathroom dawdler" and neat-nick) was repulsed by the disgusting hat and said it was the most disreputable hat he had ever seen any Naval Officer wear, but he was never able to get McCain to toss it!

It was also said that Halsey, who was a clean freak, got so irritated with 'Slew" McCain walking around the bridge of his ship spewing cigarette ashes to and fro from the long gray tube of ashes he just let stay there on the end of the cigarette until gravity made it fall without the aid of an ashtray to land in) that he detailed a sailor to follow him around the bridge and sweep up after him!

He is someone I would have liked to have met.

Oddly, I served for a few months under CDR John McCain when he was released from the Hanoi Hilton and they gave him a training command (VA-174 Razorbacks out of Cecil Field, FL) but it was clear even then he wasn't his grandfather or even his father, who by all accounts, was a solid leader.

Note: It may sound like I don't admire Admiral Halsey-but I absolutely do. I just think his age and the stress of command caught up with him in late 1944.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Bookmark

[Tijeras_Slim]

If I preorder, will you start writing tonight? :)

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wow, what a story. Thanks for posting this, Ransom!

A few weeks ago, I watched the excellent documentary Theodore Roosevelt on Netflix. Theodore (the President) worked hard to overcome being sickly child. His dad pushed him and pushed him. He was always working hard to prove himself to his dad.

It sounds like the exact same trait was passed down to Theodore Roosevelt Jr. The death of his brother Quentin is mentioned in the Netflix video.

I highly recommend that two-part video.

IMDB: Theodore Roosevelt

My maternal grandfather was born in 1905, right in the middle of Theodore Roosevelt's administrations (September 14, 1901 – March 4, 1909). I never asked where Grandpa got his name. His dad was "Michael" and his grandpa was "John."