ARMYHISTORY Summer 2018 PB 20-18-3 (No. 108) Washington, D.C. In This Issue Fredendall’s Failure: A Reexamination of the II Corps at the Battle of Kasserine Pass By Christopher Rein 6 “Your Men Don’t Know How to Fight” The American Expeditionary Forces Incorporating Lessons Learned 28 By Jonathan D. Bratten U.S. Army Artifact Spotlight22 NMUSA Feature24 The Professional Bulletin of Army History 1 ABOUT U.S. Army THE AUTHOR Christopher Rein is a historian with the Combat Studies Institute, Army University Press at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Kan- sas, where his disser- tation and first book, The North African Air Campaign (Lawrence, Kans., 2012), argued for an operational use of airpower rather than strategic pursuits that have dominated the U.S. Air Force for most of its history. His second book, Alabamians in Blue, scheduled for release in 2019, ex- amines the linkages between environ- mental history and southern dissenters in northern Alabama during the Civil War. He has served as an associate professor of history and the Deputy for Military History at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and as an associate professor at the Air Command and Staff College in Montgomery, Alabama, where he directed the Modern Airpower course and instructed courses on leadership. Maj. Gen. Lloyd R. Fredendall while commanding the II Corps in NoN rth Africaa, c. 1942–1943 6 Army HistoryHisistot6o2013rryy SummerSumummemer 20182020188 BY CHRISTOPHER REIN he Battle of Kasserine Pass tle.1 It also serves to reinforce the Ar- and how leaders handle the many hashah become legendary in my’s emphasis on leadership, as one challenges faced—not least among AmericanA military circles, man, Maj. Gen. Lloyd R. Fredendall, them personnel management—when especiallyes among propo- has suffered the lion’s share of the things do not go according to plan. nents of peacetime preparedness in blame for the reverses, fitting neatly the post–World War II Army. In its within a service narrative that prizes first test against the Germans, the heroic combat leadership as an arbiter BACKGROUND: THE II CORPS Army endured a significant setback, of battle. Focusing on American fail- The U.S. Army II Corps’ history suffering hundreds of casualties and ure at Kasserine also helps the star of dates back to the First World War losing thousands of men captured in a Fredendall’s replacement, Maj. Gen. when the corps was part of the British German counterattack engineered by George S. Patton Jr., shine brighter Third Army in the “Hundred Days” the vaunted Desert Fox himself, Field by comparison, Patton’s principal offensive that culminated in the breach Marshal Erwin Rommel. The episode biographer, Martin Blumenson, of the German Hindenburg Line. This serves both progressive narratives, of has become Kasserine’s preeminent joint service is represented on the an Army that picked itself up off the chronicler. But Kasserine defies easy corps’ insignia, an American eagle mat and went on to vanquish its op- explanation. Extenuating factors de- and a British lion flanking a roman ponent, as well as advocates of greater graded the II Corps’ performance in numeral “II.” peacetime preparedness and training, the battle and deserve detailed analy- The II Corps, after serving as a Na- to avoid repeats in future wars, where sis to examine how organizations tional Guard headquarters during the the first battle might be the only bat- function in successful operations interwar years, was reactivated by thee 7 7 Dwight D. Eisenhower, shown here as a four-star general, stops for a War Department at Fort Jay in New York Harbor in August 1940. The noontime mess during an inspection tour in Tunisia in 1943. corps’ mission was commanding the divisions being mobilized to raise the Army’s level of preparedness in light of the conflict then raging in Europe. U.S. Army The unit participated in the Carolina maneuvers in the fall of 1941, “during which the Corps, by now under com- mand of [Maj. Gen.] Lloyd R. Freden- dall, gained a reputation for able staff planning.”2 During the maneuvers, Fredendall faced an almost identical scenario as the one the Allies would later see in Tunisia: a large, infantry- heavy army (of which Fredendall was a part) advancing against a smaller but more heavily mechanized and there- fore more agile foe, with his notional opposition then provided by the same 1st Armored Division later assigned to his command. By virtue of its proximity to ports of embarkation, planners selected the II Corps, now under the command of Maj. Gen. Mark W. Clark, to be the first corps headquarters shipped overseas to command the American divisions slated for the buildup in the United Kingdom in preparation for the eventual cross-channel attack onto the European continent. Fredendall, disappointed not to be going overseas, took command of the newly formed XI Corps in Chicago. Realizing how disappointed Fredendall was, the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, wrote to him explaining that National Archives National the II Corps was destined for a special project which Clark had been instru- mental in planning.3 Clark ascended to become the deputy to Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander of the North African Theater of Operations; Marshall objected to Clark’s projected replacement, Maj. Gen. Russell P. Har- tle, because the II Corps commander would lead the invasion forces destined for Oran, Morocco. Marshall offered Eisenhower the services of “practically anyone you name” from among the corps commanders currently in the states: Maj. Gens. William H. Simpson, Courtney H. Hodges, John P. Lucas, and Fredendall. From that list, Eisen- hower selected Fredendall. It has been suggested that Marshall and Lt. Gen. MMaj. Gen. Orlando Ward, c. 1942 Lesley J. McNair, then commanding the 8 ArmyAHi History SummerS 2018 Messina OPERATION TORCH SARDINIA November 1942 SPAIN MEDITERRANEAN SEA SICILY TORCH Landings ATLANTIC Bizerte OCEAN TUNIS 0 200 EASTERN Bône Pantelleria TASK FORCE ALGIERS Tabarka Miles Philippeville CENTER Malta Gibraltar Strait of Gibraltar TASK FORCE Blida Tangier Arzew Sbeïtla S P A Oran Tébessa N I Mellil WESTERN S H M Kasserine O R O C C O TASK FORCE Sfax Port-Lyautey Salé Fes RABAT Fedala Casablanca ALGERIA TRIPOLI FRENCH MOROCCO TUNISIA Safi LIBYA Marrakech Army Ground Forces, pushed Freden- a division headquarters with support General Fredendall, who reported less dall on Eisenhower. But Fredendall’s units. This friction was exacerbated by than a month before the landings. reputation, largely gained in training supposedly neutral observers sent by Most of the staff replacements were the 4th Infantry Division and in corps Eisenhower, third parties who were new and all were inexperienced. The command in the Carolina maneuvers, themselves ambitious and anxious chief of staff, Col. John A. Dabney, likely tipped the scales.4 for a combat command. This led to an was a 1926 graduate of the University In the Second World War, the almost complete breakdown within II of Kentucky Reserve Officers’ Train- strength of the bond that formed be- Corps and the eventual relief of both ing Corps program and the G–3, Col. tween the British and their II Corps Fredendall and Ward. Robert A. Hewitt, was a 1932 graduate allies would be sorely tested when of West Point. The G–2, Col. Benjamin General Fredendall suffered a hu- A. Dickson, also a West Point gradu- miliating defeat that, after the war, he OPERATION TORCH ate, spent most of the interwar period blamed on the commander of the Brit- When President Franklin D. Roo- as a reservist, and Fredendall’s aide, ish First Army, Lt. Gen. Kenneth A. N. sevelt and British Prime Minister Capt. James R. Webb, was a civilian Anderson. According to Fredendall, Winston Churchill approved the the summer before. The staff became Anderson had micromanaged II Corps Operation Torch landings in North known as “Fredendall’s kindergarten,” and repeatedly divided it into so many Africa for November 1942, the II and the corps commander himself parts and dispersed it so widely that Corps, as the only corps headquarters remarked, “By God, I am going to war it was incapable of action, especially then in the United Kingdom, became surrounded by children!”8 Despite when facing the strong German coun- the planning organization for one of this, Fredendall took over an advanced terattack at Kasserine.5 After the war, the three landings, designated the planning effort, and successfully di- even the British official history agreed, Center Task Force and destined for rected the corps headquarters in the admitting that Fredendall’s “freedom Oran. General Patton’s Western Task landings, functioning as an embarked to act was in many ways restricted by Force sailed directly from the states Task Force headquarters aboard the 1st Army [sic].”6 for Morocco, while a British head- command ship HMS Largs. Indeed, if there is anything to be quarters led the Eastern Task Force Center Task Force’s objective was learned about corps command and at Algiers. the city of Oran, which was defended leadership from the II Corps, it is in At the same time, the II Corps un- by the Vichy French garrison. Two air- managing relationships with senior derwent a series of levies on its person- fields just beyond the city, La Senia and and subordinate commanders. In nel, with staff officers siphoned off to Tafraoui, were scheduled for assault by addition to the tension between the man Eisenhower’s Allied Force head- an airborne battalion, the 2d Battalion corps and army commanders, serious quarters, including General Clark. As of the 509th Infantry, 82nd Airborne rifts also developed between division one historian of early mobilization Division, flying directly from the and corps commanders, most notably efforts put it, “Expansion on such a United Kingdom under the command between Fredendall and Maj.