Frederic B. Butler

Brigadier General Frederic Bates Butler (5 October 1896 – 20 June 1987) was the U.S. Army officer who led the American Task Force in the encirclement action of Operation Dragoon at the Battle of Montelimar, France, in World War II. A 1918 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, he served with Roy Chapman Andrews's expedition to Mongolia in 1925 and worked on Treasure Island for the 1939–1940 Golden Gate International Exposition. During World War II he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership of the 168th Infantry in the Italian campaign.

Early life Frederic Bates Butler was born in San Francisco, California on 5 October 1896. He was educated at St. Ignatius College Preparatory, a Jesuit school in San Francisco, where he graduated from in 1913. He was a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from 15 June 1916 to 1 November 1918. On graduation, ranked eighth in his class, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Corps of Engineers. He was at Camp A. A. Humphreys, Virginia, as a student officer at the United States Army Engineer School there from 2 December 1918 until June 1919, when he was sent to France with American Expeditionary Forces on a tour of observation of the World War I battlefields. He returned to Camp A. A. Humphreys in September. He was promoted to first lieutenant on 7 May 1919, and graduated in June 1921.

Between the wars Butler commanded the Headquarters and Service Company of the 13th Engineers from June 1921 until September 1922, when became a student officer at the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In January 1923, He became aide-de-camp to Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces in China, Brigadier General William D. Connor. On 12 November 1924, he married Philippi Harriette Harding in St Louis Church, Tientsin, China. She had worked as a secretary for Lou Henry Hoover while she was a senior at Stanford University and continued in this role until she left to marry him in China.

In 1925, Butler joined the Third Asiatic Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History, led by naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews. The expedition left for Mongolia on 11 April 1925. As a cartographer, Butler was part of the three-member topographic team headed by Major L. B. Roberts, who traveled a couple of days in advance of the main party to record the route and map places of scientific interest. Butler returned to Tientsin in August 1925. He wrote reports and gave lectures on his experiences.

Butler was an instructor of tactics at West Point from June 1926 to August 1927, when he was assigned to the U.S. Engineer's office in San Francisco. Philippi resumed her work for Lou Hoover there. After Lou's husband Herbert Hoover became President of the United States in 1929, she became Lou's secretary at the White House, and was in charge of responding to pleas for assistance during the Great Depression. Butler was reassigned to Washington, D.C., in April 1930 as the assistant director of Public Buildings and Grounds. This included the White House, which, although not the largest public building in terms of floor size or volume, consumed the majority of his time.

Hoover left office in 1933, and one of the first things the new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, did was transfer responsibility for public buildings and grounds from the War Department to the Department of the Interior. He retired from the Army in April 1953.

After retiring from the Army, Butler served as manager of the San Francisco International Airport from 1954 to 1960,

Awards and decorations

Distinguished Service Cross Legion of Merit with the Oak Leaf Cluster Bronze Star Purple Heart Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 with palm (France) Officer of the Legion of Honor (France) War Cross of Military Valor (Italy) Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Dates of rank