Roosevelt published a paper through the American Museum of Natural History in 1934, describing a new species of fossil pronghorn that he and a boyhood friend, Joseph W. Burden, had found in a cave in southern Arizona.[1][2] He attended Harvard College, where he wrote his senior thesis on some Nakhi (Naxi) manuscripts he had collected while visiting Western China at the border of Tibet.[3][4]Life magazine published images from his journey, which he made at the age of 19.[5]
Roosevelt served in the 1st Infantry Division, alongside his father. He served as an artillery officer in the unit.
In 1942, he was seriously wounded by machine gun fire from a German aircraft but survived, and returned to service within a year.[6]
During the war, he fought in the Battle of Kasserine Pass (February 1943).[7] Roosevelt was among the first wave of soldiers to land at Omaha Beach while his father landed with the first wave at Utah Beach on D-Day.
While serving as the Director of the China National Aviation Corporation, he was killed in a plane crash in Hong Kong, on December 21, 1948. He was 29. His C-54 plane crashed on a mountain on Basalt Island, near Sai Kung. All 35 on board were killed instantly.[8] There is no clear record of recovery or disposition of his remains, but they are believed to have been left on Basalt Island.[9] A memorial gravestone for him is located at his wife's grave in Youngs Cemetery in Oyster Bay, New York.[10][11] A memorial was placed for him on Basalt Island.
On April 12, 1944, he married Frances Blanche Webb,[12] an American Red Cross worker, at Blandford Forum. They had three daughters: Alexandra, Susan Roosevelt Weld, and Anna C. Roosevelt, a noted archaeologist specializing in Amazonia, who won a MacArthur Fellowship. Alexandra married Ronald W. Dworkin.[13] Susan graduated from Harvard University with a JD and PhD, and was married to former Massachusetts Governor William Weld; they had five children: David Minot Weld, Ethel Derby Weld, Mary B. Weld, Quentin Roosevelt Weld, and Frances Wylie Weld.[14]