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{{Short description|American general during World War II}}
{{Infobox military person
| name = Lloyd Fredendall
| image = L.R.Fredendall.jpg
| caption = Fredendall as Lieutenant General
| birth_date = {{birth date|1883|12|28}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|1963|10|4|1883|12|28}}
| placeofburial = [[Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery]]
| birth_place = [[Cheyenne, Wyoming|Cheyenne]], [[Wyoming Territory]], U.S.
| death_place = [[San Diego|San Diego, California]], U.S.
| allegiance = {{flag|United States|1908}}
| branch = {{army|United States}}
| serviceyears = 1907–1946
| servicenumber = 0-2197
| rank = [[File:US-O9 insignia.svg|25px]] [[Lieutenant general (United States)|Lieutenant
| unit = [[File:USA - Army Infantry Insignia.png|25px]] [[Infantry Branch (United States)|Infantry Branch]]
| commands = [[57th Infantry Regiment (United States)|57th Infantry Regiment]]<br>[[4th Infantry Division (United States)|4th Infantry Division]]<br>[[XI Corps (United States)|XI Corps]]<br>[[II Corps (United States)|II Corps]]<br>[[Second United States Army|Second Army]]<br>[[Central Defense Command]]
| battles = [[Philippine–American War]]<br>[[World War I]]<br>[[World War II]]
* [[North African Campaign]]
| awards = [[Distinguished Service Medal (U.S. Army)|Army Distinguished Service Medal]]<br>[[Philippine Campaign Medal]]<br>[[Mexican Border Service Medal]]<br>[[World War I Victory Medal (United States)|World War I Victory Medal]]<br>[[American Defense Service Medal]]<br>[[American Campaign Medal]]<br>[[European–African–Middle Eastern Campaign Medal]]<br>[[World War II Victory Medal]]
| spouse = Crystal Daphne Chant (m. 1909-1963, his death)
| children = 2
}}
[[Lieutenant general (United States)|Lieutenant General]] '''Lloyd Ralston Fredendall''' (December 28, 1883 – October 4, 1963) was a general [[Officer (armed forces)|officer]] of the [[United States Army]] who served during [[World War II]]. He is best known for his leadership failure during the [[Battle of Kasserine Pass]], leading to one of America's worst defeats of [[World War II]], for which he was relieved of his command.<ref>{{cite news |last=Brimelow |first=Benjamin |date=February 22, 2022 |title=What the US's first humiliating encounter with the Nazis taught the Allies about how to win World War II |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/what-allied-defeat-at-kasserine-pass-taught-about-fighting-nazis-2022-2 |work=[[Business Insider]] |location=New York, NY |quote="Decades after the battle, Gen. Omar Bradley described it as a "complete disaster." "Even these many years later, it pains me to reflect on that disaster," Bradley said in an autobiography published in the 1980s. "It was probably the worst performance of U.S. Army troops in their whole proud history.""}}</ref>
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As a result of his father's connections in the service and with local and state politicians, Fredendall secured an appointment from [[Wyoming]] [[United States Senator|Senator]] [[Francis E. Warren]] to enter the class of 1905 at the [[United States Military Academy]] (USMA). Described by a classmate as "a very soldierly little fellow, but extremely goaty in [[mathematics]]," Fredendall performed poorly in math as well as in general deportment, and was dismissed after just one semester.<ref name="ossad">{{cite news |first=Ossad |last=Steven L. |title=Command Failures: Lessons Learned from Lloyd R. Fredendall |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3723/is_200303/ai_n9222724 |work=Army Magazine |date=March 2003 |accessdate=November 20, 2008 }}</ref>{{efn|For West Point underclassmen, the [[United States Military Academy#Goat-Engineer game|"goats"]] are those ranked in the bottom half of the class. For seniors, the "goat" is the cadet ranked last in the graduating class.<ref>{{cite news |date=May 29, 2014 |title=The Curious Tradition of the West Point Goat |url=http://www.wnyc.org/story/cult-goat-west-point-tradition/ |newspaper=WNYC Radio |location=New York, NY}}</ref>}}
His mother persuaded Senator Warren to re-appoint Fredendall the next year, but he dropped out again.{{sfn|Taaffe|2013|p=62}} Although the senator was willing to nominate him for a third attempt, the academy declined to readmit him. Instead, Fredendall attended the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] from 1903 to 1904 as a member of the class of 1907.<ref>
After service in the [[Philippines]] and other overseas and stateside assignments, Fredendall shipped out to the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] with the [[28th Infantry Regiment (United States)|28th Infantry Regiment]] in August 1917, four months after the [[American entry into World War I]]. He held a succession of instructor assignments in the army's schools in France, and commanded one of its training centers.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Tucker |editor1-first=Spencer C. |date=2016|title=World War II: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection |volume=I |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wm_YDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA651 |location=Santa Barbara, CA |publisher=ABC-CLIO |page=651 |isbn=978-1-8510-9969-6 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> He built a record as an excellent teacher, trainer, and administrator, and ended the war as a temporary [[Lieutenant colonel (United States)|lieutenant colonel]].<ref name="ossad"/>
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On March 5, 1943, after the American [[Battle of Kasserine Pass|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 (military)|division]] commanders. To a man they've lost confidence in Fredendall as the corps commander." British [[General (United Kingdom)|General]] [[Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis|Sir Harold Alexander]], the [[18th Army Group]] commander, informed Eisenhower that he would welcome a replacement for Fredendall.<ref>[[Martin Blumenson|Blumenson, Martin]], ''Masters of the Art of Command,'' Da Capo Press (1990), {{ISBN|0-306-80403-4}}, {{ISBN|978-0-306-80403-8}}, p. 284.</ref> 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 (United States)|Major General]] [[George S. Patton]] as Fredendall's replacement. On March 5, 1943, Eisenhower personally flew to [[Tébessa|Tebessa]] to inform Fredendall of his decision to replace him, which he couched in terms of a routine reassignment.<ref>[[John Eisenhower|Eisenhower, John S. D.]], ''Allies: Pearl Harbor to D-Day'', Da Capo Press (2000), {{ISBN|0-306-80941-9}}, {{ISBN|978-0-306-80941-5}}, pp. 279–280.</ref> Eisenhower arranged the replacement so that Fredendall's reputation was not formally brought into disrepute, an action some believe he soon came to regret.<ref>Blumenson, pp. 282–284.</ref><ref>Eisenhower, John S. D., ''Allies: Pearl Harbor to D-Day'', Da Capo Press (2000), {{ISBN|0-306-80941-9}}, {{ISBN|978-0-306-80941-5}}, p. 280: "Upon assuming command of II Corps, Patton was given specific personal written instructions by Eisenhower, including this directive: "You must not retain for ''one instant'' any man in a responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability to do his job."</ref> 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 (U.S. state)|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."<ref>Perry, Mark, ''Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace'', London: Penguin Group (2007), {{ISBN|1-59420-105-6}}, {{ISBN|978-1-59420-105-9}}, p. 178.</ref> Fredendall was the first of seven American corps commanders in World War II to be "relieved of command", most for medical reasons.
In his after-action report for the Kasserine battles, the [[2nd Armored Division (United States)|2nd Armored Division]] commander, Major General [[Ernest N. Harmon]], called Fredendall both a moral and physical coward and later said he was "a son of a bitch".<ref>D'Este, Carlo, ''Patton: A Genius for War'', Harper/Collins (1996), {{ISBN|0-06-092762-3}}, {{ISBN|978-0-06-092762-2}}, p. 460.</ref>
===Reassignment and stateside duty===
At Eisenhower's recommendation, Fredendall returned to the United States. Eisenhower's aide made a report on Fredendall to [[President of the United States|President]] [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]],
While commanding the [[Central Defense Command]] and the [[Second United States Army|U.S. Second Army]] at [[Memphis, Tennessee]], Fredendall supervised training and field maneuvers, gave away brides,<ref>"Captain and Army Nurse Wed", ''[[The New York Times]]'', December 10, 1944.</ref> and at first even granted interviews to members of the press. However, after a sarcastic comment on his generalship by a ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine reporter, Fredendall changed his mind, and largely blocked further press coverage of his command.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20081214173018/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,802667,00.html "Fredendall For Lear"], ''Time'' magazine, April 12, 1943.</ref> The widespread custom of [[Theater (warfare)|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]].<ref name="ossad"/>
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 "
Fredendall served through the end of the war in 1945, and retired on March 31, 1946.
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==Further reading==
*{{cite book | title = An Army at Dawn | first = Rick | last = Atkinson | author-link = Rick Atkinson | year = 2002 | publisher = Macmillan | isbn = 0-8050-6288-2 | url = https://archive.org/details/armyatdawnwarinn00atki }}
*{{cite book|last=Taaffe|first=Stephen R.|title=Marshall and His Generals: U.S. Army Commanders in World War II|year=2013|location=Lawrence, Kansas|publisher=University Press of Kansas|isbn=978-0-7006-1942-9|oclc=840162019}}
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