The officer who stormed Normandy with nothing but a cane and pistol
By Claire Barrett
Jun 6, 2024, 03:00 PM
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., poses with his jeep in France. (Library of Congress)
“We’ll start the war from right here!” Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. purportedly declared as his Higgins landing craft drifted about a mile from its target destination on Utah Beach the morning of June 6, 1944.
At the age of 56, Roosevelt, the son of President Theodore Roosevelt, was not only the oldest soldier deployed during Operation Overlord, but the highest-ranking American figure to storm the beaches during the invasion of Normandy.
And he did so armed only with a cane and a pistol.
A veteran of the First World War, Roosevelt was among the first American doughboys to land in France in 1918, seeing action during the Battle of Cantigny. Reenlisting at the outbreak of World War II, Roosevelt led four amphibious assaults, from Operation Torch — the invasion of North Africa — to fighting on the beaches of Sicily and in the mountains of Italy.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2024/06/06/the-officer-who-stormed-normandy-with-nothing-but-a-cane-and-pistol/
