We’ll Start the War From Right Here
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and the Leadership That Helped Liberate Europe
On the morning of June 6, 1944, an aging American general stepped into the cold waters of the English Channel carrying a pistol, a map, and a wooden cane.
By any reasonable measure, he should not have been there.
He was fifty-six years old. Arthritis pained nearly every step. Heart disease shadowed his health. He had already served his country in war and peace alike. No one would have questioned his absence from the first wave of the largest amphibious invasion in history.
Yet there he was.
As landing craft churned toward Utah Beach beneath a gray Norman sky, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. prepared to accompany the assault troops into occupied France.
Though legally Theodore Roosevelt III, he was known throughout his life as Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the eldest son of the twenty-sixth president.
His name was never entirely his own. Long before Theodore Roosevelt Jr. entered public life, the hero of San Juan Hill had become an American legend. The trustbuster, the naturalist, the president whose energy seemed too large for any office cast a long shadow across the century that followed.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. spent much of his life carrying that inheritance. He neither escaped it nor denied it. Instead, he sought to prove himself worthy of it.
To political observers between the world wars, Theodore Jr. appeared destined for prominence in his own right. He was widely regarded as the leading figure of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts, the branch of the family descended from Theodore Roosevelt and distinct from the Hyde Park branch that produced Franklin Roosevelt.
He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor of Puerto Rico, Governor-General of the Philippines, and held senior positions in private industry. Few Americans of his generation seemed less likely to spend the dawn of June 6, 1944, wading through surf under enemy fire.
Yet history had other plans.
When war again engulfed the world, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. returned to uniform. He was already a veteran of the First World War. Age and injury had accumulated. His body increasingly rebelled against him.
His sense of duty did not.
Utah Beach occupied the western flank of Operation Overlord; the Allied invasion intended to break Hitler’s grip on Fortress Europe and begin the liberation of the continent.
The men landing at Utah Beach had a difficult assignment. They were expected to secure a foothold on the Cotentin Peninsula, fight their way inland to link up with American paratroopers already descending into Normandy, and open the route to Cherbourg, whose harbor the Allies desperately needed.
Everything depended upon momentum. Simply put, the invasion force could not linger on the beaches.
The American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions had already dropped inland during the night, scattering across hedgerows, fields, villages, and marshland. Thousands of young paratroopers now fought in isolation behind enemy lines. The men landing at Utah Beach needed to reach them—and they needed to do it quickly.
Once the invasion began, there would be no turning back. The Allies would either secure a foothold in France or watch the greatest amphibious operation in history collapse on the beaches of Normandy.
Roosevelt understood the stakes. That is why he repeatedly sought permission to land with the first wave. Roosevelt’s request was not immediately approved. According to his Medal of Honor citation, two verbal requests to accompany the assault troops were denied before a written request finally received authorization.
His persistence would make him the only American general officer to land by sea with the first assault wave on D-Day.
Almost immediately, the invasion encountered a serious complication. Powerful currents had pushed the assault force nearly two thousand yards south of its intended landing sector.
Units became intermixed. Landmarks disappeared beneath smoke and confusion while German fire swept the shoreline. Bullets and artillery shells tore through the air—through skin, surf, and sand.
Thousands of American soldiers were already coming ashore behind Roosevelt. More were arriving by the minute. Whatever error had been made in navigation, there would be no opportunity to begin again.
Roosevelt looked across the shoreline, took stock of the situation, and uttered a sentence that has echoed through history.
“We’ll start the war from right here.”
The famous remark was more than a display of confidence. Roosevelt immediately went to work. Men searched for their units, officers tried to establish control, and vehicles crowded the narrow approaches inland. Somebody needed to restore order.
Moving about the beach under fire, Roosevelt helped organize scattered formations and push them toward the roads and causeways leading inland.
His Medal of Honor citation records that he “repeatedly led groups from the beach, over the seawall and established them inland.” It further credited his “seasoned, precise, calm, and unfaltering leadership” with helping assault troops reduce enemy strongpoints and advance rapidly inland.
The invasion could not remain on the sand. The troops needed to reach the paratroopers already fighting across the peninsula and continue the advance toward Cherbourg.
Earlier in the war, Roosevelt’s tendency to share the hardships and dangers his soldiers faced drew criticism from some senior commanders.
On Utah Beach, however, that same instinct placed him exactly where he could do the most good.
No one would have faulted him for remaining behind the assault troops that morning.
Instead, he insisted on going ashore with his men.
Throughout the morning, Roosevelt moved among the troops coming ashore, remaining exposed to enemy fire as additional landing craft reached the beach and American forces pushed inland.
The star on his helmet marked him as a general officer. The cane in his hand reflected the physical condition of a man who, by any ordinary measure, had no business landing with the first wave.
A little more than a month after D-Day, on July 12, 1944, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. suffered a fatal heart attack in France.
Today, he rests at the Normandy American Cemetery overlooking the shores where the liberation of Europe began.
Beside him lies his younger brother Quentin Roosevelt, shot down over France during the First World War.
The brothers were separated in death by more than a quarter century. Now they rest side by side.
One fell in the war that ushered in the American century.
The other helped open the road to Europe’s liberation.
The beachhead held. The airborne troops were reached. The advance toward Cherbourg began.
Roosevelt’s declaration has endured for more than eight decades:
“We’ll start the war from right here.”
Yet the lasting lesson is not found in the words themselves.
It is found in the example of the man who spoke them.
Charlton Allen is an attorney and former public servant who writes on policy, history, and religion. He is the nominee of President Donald J. Trump to serve as General Counsel of the Federal Labor Relations Authority. The views expressed are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the President or his administration.
Image: In this June 6, 1984 file photo, U.S. President Ronald Reagan stands next to first lady Nancy Reagan as she lays flowers at the grave of World War II Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty, File)