Lloyd Fredendall

Fredendall visits the British aircraft carrier HMS Formidable at Oran, 1943.

After the Torch landings, Fredendall became the de facto military governor in Oran. Orders from his headquarters in the Grand Hotel of Oran were headed with "II Corps – In the Field," which prompted derision from his troops, who were living in spartan conditions.[8]

Fredendall was assigned to command the U.S. II Corps in its advance into Tunisia against German forces. (He thus became the second-oldest of the 34 generals to serve as a U.S. Army corps commander in World War II, after Innis P. Swift, commander of the I Corps in the Pacific.) II Corps served under the British First Army, whose commander, Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson, considered Fredendall incompetent well before the loss at Kasserine. Fredendall was given to speaking and issuing orders using his own slang, such as calling infantry units "walking boys" and artillery "popguns." Instead of using the standard military map grid-based location designators, he made up confusing codes such as "the place that begins with C." This practice was unheard-of for a general and distinguished graduate of the Command and General Staff School, who had been taught to always use standardized language and procedures to ensure clarity when transmitting orders under the stress of combat. Fredendall's informality often led to confusion among his subordinates, and precious time was lost attempting to discern his meaning.[9]

During the advance into Tunisia, Fredendall used an engineer company of the 19th Engineer Regiment to build a large, dug-in corps headquarters bunker 70 miles (110 km) behind the front in a place called Speedy Valley (nine miles southeast of Tébessa). Blasted and drilled out of solid rock, the bunker (actually two U-shaped complexes running 160 feet (49 m) into the hillside) took three weeks to construct.[10] An anti-aircraft battalion was emplaced to protect the headquarters. Fredendall also ordered a bulletproof Cadillac similar to Eisenhower's, and regularly phoned Oran to find out why it was not being delivered faster. Then-Brigadier General Omar Bradley called the headquarters "an embarrassment to every American soldier," and General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in North Africa, after viewing the elaborate structure, reminded his senior commanders that even generals must assume personal risk in combat.[11] Fredendall rarely visited the front lines, and had a habit of disregarding advice from commanders who had been farther forward and had actually reconnoitered the terrain.[12] He split up units and scattered them widely,[13] and at critical defense points had positioned U.S. forces (against advice) too far apart for mutual support or effective employment of artillery, the strongest American arm.[14][15][16]

During the Battle of Kasserine Pass, Eisenhower sent Major General Ernest N. Harmon to report on the fighting, to assist Fredendall and the other Allied commanders, and to determine whether Fredendall or his 1st Armored Division commander, Major General Orlando Ward, should be replaced.[17] Harmon noted that Fredendall and his superior, Anderson, rarely saw each other, and failed to properly coordinate and integrate forces under their command. Fredendall was barely on speaking terms with Ward, whom he had deliberately left out of operational meetings after Ward had repeatedly protested the separation of his command into weaker 'penny packet' forces distributed across various sectors of the front.[3][18]

Allied forces were bereft of air support during critical attacks, and were frequently positioned by the senior command in positions where they could not support each other. Subordinates later recalled their utter confusion at being handed conflicting orders, not knowing which general to obey—Anderson or Fredendall. While interviewing field commanders, Harmon heard much criticism over what many Allied officers viewed as a cowardly, confused, and out-of-touch command. Noting that Fredendall seemed out of touch (and at one point, intoxicated), he requested and received permission to go to the front and intervene where necessary to shore up Allied defenses.[19]

American troops taken prisoner at Kasserine Pass marching through a Tunisian village, January 1943.

On March 5, 1943, after the American rout at Kasserine Pass, Eisenhower visited II Corps headquarters and conferred with Brigadier General Bradley. Eisenhower asked "What do you think of the command here?" Bradley's response was "It's pretty bad. I've talked to all the division commanders. To a man they've lost confidence in Fredendall as the corps commander." British General Sir Harold Alexander, the 18th Army Group commander, informed Eisenhower that he would welcome a replacement for Fredendall.[20] Eisenhower offered the II Corps command to Harmon, who declined on the grounds that it would be unethical to appear to personally benefit from his negative assessment of Fredendall.

Eisenhower then decided on Major General George S. Patton as Fredendall's replacement. On March 5, 1943, Eisenhower personally flew to Tebessa to inform Fredendall of his decision to replace him, which he couched in terms of a routine reassignment.[21] Eisenhower arranged the replacement so that Fredendall's reputation was not formally brought into disrepute, an action some believe he soon came to regret.[22][23] On March 6, 1943, Patton replaced Fredendall. When Patton arrived at II Corps headquarters, Fredendall was at breakfast. Patton had disliked Fredendall in 1941 when they were both division commanders at Fort Benning, Georgia. After a brief conference, Patton formally relieved him, saying II Corps "was primarily a tank show and I know more about tanks." Patton noted in his diary that Fredendall was "Very nice, conducted himself well – very well." In a letter to his wife Beatrice that day, Patton even wrote that "Fredendall is a great sport, and I feel sure, is a victim largely due to circumstances beyond his control." However, only a week later, after an initial inspection of his new command, Patton had completely changed his mind: "I cannot see what Fredendall did to justify his existence."[24]

Fredendall was the first of seven American corps commanders in World War II to be "relieved of command" (most for medical reasons), but despite this, he received one more promotion: in June 1943, he was advanced to lieutenant general.

At Eisenhower's recommendation, Fredendall returned to the United States. Eisenhower's aide made a report on Fredendall to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, where he communicated, without elaboration, Eisenhower's view that Fredendall should be reassigned to a training command.[25] As a result, Fredendall spent the rest of the war in training assignments in the United States. Because he had not been formally reprimanded by Eisenhower, he was eligible for appointment to lieutenant general and three-star assignment, which he duly received, along with a hero's welcome on his return to the United States.[25]

While commanding the Central Defense Command and the U.S. Second Army at Memphis, Tennessee, Fredendall supervised training and field maneuvers, gave away brides,[26] and at first even granted interviews to members of the press. However, after a sarcastic comment on his generalship by a Time magazine reporter, Fredendall changed his mind, and largely blocked further press coverage of his command.[27] The widespread custom of theater commanders to transfer senior commanders who had failed in battlefield assignments to stateside training commands did not in any way improve the reputation or morale of the latter, who were now saddled with the difficult job of convincing a disgraced commander to take the lead in advocating radical improvements in existing army training programs—programs which, like Fredendall himself, had contributed to the embarrassing U.S. Army reverses in North Africa.[3]

Author Charles B. MacDonald described Fredendall as a "man of bombast and bravado in speech and manner [who] failed to live up to the image he tried to create." Historian Carlo D'Este has described Fredendall as "...one of the most inept senior officers to hold a high command during World War II."[28] The 2nd Armored Division commander, Major General Ernest N. Harmon, in his after-action report for the Kasserine battles, called Fredendall both a moral and physical coward and later said he was "a son of a bitch".[29]

Fredendall served through the end of the war in 1945, and retired on March 31, 1946.