Don
Martin diary entry for Sunday, August 18, 1918:
Left Paris at 1:10 o’clock. Did not go to the front. It is very quiet.
Wrote 350 words for New York and a short piece for Paris.
A front
page article in the Sunday, August 18, edition of the New York Herald was
headlined:--
THREE MILLION AMERICANS IN ARMS,
NEARLY HALF OF THEM OVERSEAS OR ON
WAY,
GENERAL MARCH SAYS
Eighty Divisions, or 3,500,000 Soldiers Will Be in France by June 30
Next.
Don Martin wrote a touching story about Quentin Roosevelt's grave, dated August 18, which was mailed to New York and published in the New York
Herald on Sunday, September 8.
‘Hats Off to the Whole Roosevelt Family!’ Is the Verdict of Army Abroad
Don Martin Tells How Grave of Fallen Flyer Has Become the Mecca for the
American Soldier in Camps Nearby and for the French People
By DON MARTIN
Special Correspondent of the Herald with the American Armies in France
(Special to the Herald)
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, August 18
Standing with his hat off beside
the grave of Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt yesterday, a brawny American private
said:--
“They used to say the Kaiser and
Roosevelt were alike. The Kaiser has five sons and they are all alive and well.
He is probably the only man in Germany who has five living sons. Roosevelt had
four. Here’s one. Two of the others have been wounded and have distinguished
service medals, besides the Croix de Guerre. The fourth is in the army also.
Here’s my hat off to the whole Roosevelt family!”
For considerable time the location
of Lieutenant Roosevelt’s grave was unknown to the Americans or French. The
young airman started off one day—July 14, to be exact—with a group of flyers
and did not return. An airplane was seen to go down in flames and it was
supposed it was his. Then from Germany came a brief statement that Lieutenant
Roosevelt had been brought down in flames and buried.
Soon after the Germans began their
retreat from the Marne Americans and French began a general search for the
Roosevelt grave. Correspondents also spent much time trying to locate it. I
spent half a day in vain and learned afterward that I had been within a half
mile of it. American soldiers found it one day about seven kilometres due east
of Fère-en-Tardenois, about a quarter of a mile outside the tiny village of
Chamery. It was no different from any other solder’s grave—just a mound of
fresh earth and a cross. The cross read:--
“LIEUTENANT
ROOSEVELT.
Buried
by the Germans.”
Now there is a more elaborate marker and the mound has been fenced in with saplings of silver birch. The wooden cross reads:--
“Here he rests on the field of
honor, Quentin Roosevelt, Air Services, U. S. A. Killed in action July, 1918.”
When I last saw it there was a jar
of wax roses placed there by Evangeline Booth, of the Salvation Army; a rose
with a card beside it reading, “With admiration and sorrow.—The Y. M. C. A.” A
trench knife was stuck in a band in the cross, a rifle was standing at the foot
of the grave and the steel rims of the wheels from the lieutenant’s machine
were standing in the angles of the fence. An American soldier had placed a
small American flag in the centre of the mound and more than a score had placed
poppies and daisies on the grave, but they had withered and been scattered
about by the wind, the stems remaining to tell the story.
The machine in which the young hero
was flying at the time he met his death was left by the Germans, a charred,
twisted, broken network of braces and wires. The engine had been removed. The
body had been buried within ten feet of the ruined plane. Now there is nothing
left of the wreckage. Every splinter and piece of wire or steel has been taken
away by souvenir hunters. American soldiers used parts of the aluminum to make
delicately shaped mementoes, such as swords and cutlasses--all very small.
Word that the grave of the young
lieutenant had been found spread rapidly. An American division was encamped
near by at the time. It would be difficult to estimate the number of Americans
who have made pilgrimage to the grave since it was located. It is about five
hundred feet off a small, slightly used road, on a little ledge of earth
overlooking a gorgeous panorama. Paths have been worn to the grave from a half
dozen different points—worn by American soldiers, who are still walking
sometimes five and six miles jut to see the spot and pay reverence to the young
American who to serve his country entered the most dangerous branch of the
service.
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| Quentin Roosevelt marker in October 2014 Visit by blog author |
Lieutenant Lytle, of Rhinelander,
Wis., went to Chamery as soon as he learned that the grave had been located,
and supervised the removal of the German marker. He also had a photograph made
of the grave as it was and as it is, had engineers make drawings and diagrams
showing the precise location of the spot and caused the engineers to enclose
the spot in a border of saplings.
“I shall send all the drawings and
diagrams to Colonel Roosevelt, he said, “because I assume that after the war he
will want to come to France to see exactly where his boy met his death and was
buried. I know if it were my son I should want to do that very thing. The boy
was a brave youngster and he has brought added lustre to the name of Roosevelt.”
The body presumably will be left
where it is until after the war. The Germans probably will never again be back
in that region, and even if they should return it is likely that they would
leave the grave untouched.
“Lieutenant Roosevelt had done
considerable flying, but had never engaged in many combats with the Germans. I
saw him on the day he started off on his first flight over the enemy lines and
I saw him one evening when he returned after being in a fight with several Germans.
He was daring and plucky and was very popular with all the Americans flyers.
His comrades frequently said:--“There is no chance that Quentin won’t take, but
he does no foolish stunts, just the
same.”
That is about the highest compliment
that can be paid by one flier to another.
On Sunday,August 18, Don Martin wrote a short dispatch, which was published in the Paris Herald on Monday, August 19.
AMERICANS ANGRY OVER HUN STORIES ABOUT PRISONERS
Enemy’s Charges That Uncle Sam’s Warriors
Take No Captives Are Unfounded
(Special Telegram to the Paris Herald)
By Don Martin
With The American Armies, Sunday
Quiet continues along that part of the Vesle held by the American troops, which I visited to-day. Patrols clash occasionally, but there has been practically no infantry activity. The Americans last night captured a prisoner. He was of low intelligence and little was learned from him.
Whether the Huns intend to make a vigorous stand where they now are—on the heights north of the Vesle—or are preparing to draw back gracefully to the Aisne is problematical. Their artillery has been less active than usual, but their bombing planes have been busy, though with little effect.
American soldiers are aroused by the reports that American prisoners in Germany are being maltreated. This, coming close on the heels of the German declaration that Americans are bloodthirsty and take no prisoners, has certainly not softened the anger of the Americans toward the Huns.
Fights Like a Sportsman
The charge that the Americans take no prisoners is false. The American soldier is a sportsman, but he is not so foolish a sportsman as to make a prisoner of a German who exhausts his ammunition and, seeing death at hand, puts up his hands and shouts “Kamerad.” I heard a man who cannot be called a dreamer say the other day that in the fighting south of the Vesle the Americans came upon a German who was shouting “Kamerad,” holding both hands as high as he could, and meantime working a machine-gun thirty feet away with a device manipulated with his feet.
East of St. Dié on Saturday morning American troops attacked the Huns. They advanced 800 mètres and captured the town of Frapele. They straightened the line on a front of more than a kilometre, between a point north of Frapele and Lesseux, thus cutting off a bad salient formerly held by the Boche.
Lieutenant Buford on Saturday attacked an enemy Rumpler in the region of St. Mihiel. The boche made a nosedive in the vicinity of Mt. Sec. There was another air battle without result. The Germans are sending propaganda over the American lines designed to stir up strife between the British and Americans.Don Martin did a translation dated Sunday, August 18, of a German newspaper article that acknowledged the role of American troops, which was published in the Paris Herald on Monday, August 19.
Huns
No Longer Underestimate
America’s Role
(Special Telegram to the Paris
Herald)
By Don Martin
With The American Armies, Sunday
The following is a translation from
the “Muenchener Post”: “The same day that General Ludendorff told the war
correspondents at Headquarters that ‘our plan of attack has failed’ Prince Henry,
brother of the Emperor, repeated at the opening of the Estonian and Livonian
exposition the words of the Turkish Attaché, ‘I consider the battle of the
Marne as a German victory.’ All the German people will be painfully astonished
that a man of such a high social rank as Prince Henry should make a public
statement regarding the military situation which not only contradicts the
reality, but also the official declarations of authorized circles.
“In the course of the interview
that our military chiefs gave to the representatives of the press they told us
that we should not underestimate the value of American assistance to our
enemies. This is a warning which certainly does not resemble the assurances
that have been spread about recently by some unauthorized persons.
“The intervention of America, they
said, was only a bluff; the continent of Europe would never see one American
soldier, the entrance of the United States in the war was nothing more than a
ridiculous ruse. Let us admit that the general situation in Germany is falsely
described by a part of the press and in numerous official speeches. It is not
true that, as they have been continually telling us for four years now, we are
on the eve of a decisive and crushing victory.”
Second
Battle of the Marne–Phase III, August 18 - September 16
Phase III of the Second Battle of the Marne began on August 18 with the
French 10th Army launching a major offensive near Soissons.
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