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.

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.

[4] 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.

[6] 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.

[8] In 1925, Butler joined the Third Asiatic Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History, led by naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews.

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.

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.

[2] From 6 September 1939 to 2 February 1940, Butler was a student officer at the United States Army Command and General Staff College and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In June 1942, after the United States entered World War II, he joined the staff of the 1st Infantry Division.

The division moved to Northern Ireland, and then participated in Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942.

[12] In December 1942, Butler became the G-3 (operations officer) at the headquarters of II Corps at the Hotel de France in Gafsa, Tunisia.