d. eisenhower museum. the program is an hour and 40 minutes. >> can you hear me all right? my name is kevin hymel and 1996 i was working on an article about the mccar sure met patton. i was at the library of congress looking through general patton's papers. i was using a finding aid and listed in the finding aids were 11 photo albums. i didn't understand what that meant. i ordered a couple. they brought me out these large books. i started opening them up and i was looking at photographs of patton and world war ii three art scenes. i realized i had never seen any before. what i was looking at were actual photographs that patton had taken from the moment he walked onto the beach in north africa and operation torch through the end of the war and

even to a few days before he was in a car accident that would take his life. i was fascinated by them. there were notes with the photographs and pictures of plays patton never mentioned he had been before. i realized this was a new angle on patton that would open up a larger picture of him. and for any historian, any person, the real object is to get inside their head and try to figure out, what were they doin? suddenly, you know, here on my lap i've got everything patton saw. you know, i have it from his eye, what he was looking at. and i thought, what a fascinating angle to examine someone from. it made me wonder, what if george washington had a camera or grant and you could see what they were looking at and it would give you a better idea of what they were thinking.

i said, do you think this would work as a book. in a magazine you only have so much space? there were 11 of these photo albums. as soon as he said yes, i got working on it. it was a labor of love for years. i'm going to give you a larger picture with conventional photographs and i mixed into it the frafsz he took. so you guys can get a better understanding of patton. he was born november 11, 1885. he would be 126 years old today. i don't think he would have lived this long hadn't it not been for the car accident. he was born in california. always wanted to be a soldier. had toy soldiers, wooden swords

like a lot of us did growing up. his father would tell him tales from the bible and confederate battle history. he would pray every night before he went to bed to a picture on his wall in the bedroom he thought was god and jesus. it wasn't until he was older he realized it was robert e. lee and stonewall jackson. that gives you aen idea of the atmosphere he's in. he meets his wife and he's unimpressed because she's carrying around a porcelain doll. she earned that doll for speaking nothing but french for a month, so beatrice was pretty well a smart gal by the time he met her. they courted through his days at have virginia military institute and west point. when he proposed to her, while he was still a cadet, he went to her house, took a train and

never kissed her before. her. if that went well, to propose. he said getting ready to kiss her was like russian roulette, he was so nervous. the next plan was to ask her to marry him. he was so prepared for rejection he brought with him a telegram from west point saying there's a crisis and emergency and you have to report back immediately in case she said no. fortunately, she said yes. this is him at west point. he made the rank of first corporal. it's a rank that doesn't exist anymore. i spoke to a bunch of west pointers about it. the first corporal was the

discipli dispalestini displain aryan. he was dyslexic with math. he went through that for two years before he started -- went to his sophomore can and junior year. by the time he's given this taste of responsibility, he goes way overboard. he says he would walk into the cafeteria and look at them and see red because he would see so many mistakes and things. it got so bad they took the job away from him. and i think that humbled him a great day. that's a theme in his future, too. when he joins the army, his first post is ft. reilly. he's asked to participate in the 1912 olympics in stockholm, sweden in the modern pentathlon. five events, swimming, running, fencing, shooting and -- i just pulled a rick perry -- swimming,

running, shooting, sword fighting and steeplechase, thank you, cavalry, of course. he did very well in the steeplechase but his time was a little short. he had no errors. when it came to the swimming -- this is patton. he would push himself at every event. he wouldn't pace himself. so, at the swim he came in second but was so exhausted they had to use a fishing hook to pull him out. pool. with fencing he came in fifth but beat the best fencer, a french officer. and with pistol shoot, he missed the target entirely twice. some patton fans believe he was such a good shot he was hitting through the holes of the previous bullets. unfortunately, judges didn't realize that was goernl patton firing and they didn't credit

him. on the running element of it, when he -- you know, they ran around the stadium, exited the stadium, ran around stockholm and re-entered the stadium. he was the first one in. and he was pushinging himself for all he was worth, he started to slow down, he was exhausted. three runners got ahead of him. he crosses the finish line and collapses. a doctor runs over to him and his father, who is in the audience and runs down and the doctor says, do you have a strong son? he said, yes, i do. he said, good, you need it. he survived it. beatrice blamed herself for pulling him out to parties. . she wanted to have fun in europe. he's going to be part of pershing's into mexico, the city

of new mexico had been attacked and they killed 18 americans. the majority of soldiers were with the 13th cavalry regiment, the rest were civilians. the expedition is fruitless. a conventional force heading south, chasing ban dits who can run into national surroundings and civilians were protect them. patton begs pershing, he shows up at his door and says, take me along. i want to go on this. pershing says, you know, i've got a million lieutenants begging me to come along. why should i pick you? patton says because i want it more than anybody else. that's how pershing got himself in the spanish-american war by saying roughly the same thing to a commander. he brings him along and at one point patton says, you know, i'm more than happy to be your staff officer but i would prefer to be with the troops doing things. so, he gets assigned to a

cavalry unit and he starts spying out what he believes are poncho villa's top lieutenants patton figures out where the general lives, rubio ranch. they capture the uncle. patton says, we questioned the uncle and we didn't think he was going to live through it. that gives you an idea of how motivated patton was in questioning him. a few days later he takes two cars -- at this time the army is horse-drawn, but they do have trucks and airplanes and a few cars. so patton takes two cars to go get corn and other food for the unit. and drives down near rubio ranch. he passes it. he has soldier pull the two cars over. we're downhill, they can't see it, we'll race back to rubio

ranch, park one in back, one in front and consult him off. a pincer movement. and we'll see if we can capture him. i just have a feeling. so they turn the cars around, race back. out of the ranch, out of one of the doors come three horses with riders. patton pulls out his ivory-handled pistols, shoots a guy in the arm, the other guys open up, mexicans trying to escape, they run away from patton and come to wall of soldier in the other car so they turn around and charge patton. he says he had to duck behind the house and reload his pistol and he says there were sparking flying from the gravel, dust from the adobie walls and they eventually kill all three. pattons after that he carried two ivory-handled pistols so he wouldn't have to stop and reload. this is something he stops in world war ii but at the time he

was double pistols. they kill all three. i just found this out in my research, its not in any book, that when they went to look although the bodies and dead horses they found blankets marked 13th cavalry. they knew they were the guys that went into columbus, new mexico, that were part of the raid. patton has his soldiers strap the dead bodies to the hood of the car like war trophies and bring them back to pershing's headquarte headquarters. he went up and cut the telephone wires because he says they could see locals gathering and they were getting nervous so they cut the telephone wires so word wouldn't get out. there is no record of what per shing thought of it but they did bury the banditos and a major success of the expedition. poncho villa survived it.

he ran away. very little fighting. this is one of the highlights. this makes his name because historically he's the first person to lead a motorized attack in the u.s. army. not first time ever but in the u.s. army, first time combu bug engines are used. pershing was a widower. his wife had died in a fire. patton's sister took a liking to pershing and vicer is va. there was a great scene leaving the docks for europe of patton's sister and wife waving good-bye to the two of them. patton is on pershing's staff. he's in charge of the motor pool and other things. patton's sister says, let me join you, be with you, i'll be a candy striper and pershing

writes back, no, no, it's fair. all the other men are without their wives. i shouldn't do it either. a where they weren't elg telling her is pershing got three girlfriends in paris. i guess four would have been a crowd by the time the war is over, he returns and she tries to rekijd the relationship and patton's sister dies single. i was with patton's granddaughter last year giving her atour of d.c. we walked by @a statue of pershing and she says, you know, he was almost my great grandfather. the things you hear. patton's on pershing's staff, working motor pool and waiting for a slot to open up to lead a infantry regiment. then he hears about this new-fangled weapon called a

tank. he realizes if he goes into tanks he's not going to get into combat as soon. this is the cutting edge of warfare. so he ponders it for a couple weeks and finally decides to go for it. there is no american tank corps. there are no tank officers, nothing, no manuals. patton has to create an entire branch and how it worked from scratch. so, he goes to the factories and sees how they're built. gets ideas for them and suggestions. he ends up teaching a course to british and french officers on tank tactics. they had been using tanks for a year. he finally leads them into battle. in september. what happens is the attack launches and patton loses communication with his tanks and his orders are to stay put. he doesn't. he starts walking forward. and as he's going forward, he goes up this hill and he bumps into a brigadier general named

mug lass macarthur. they pull out a map and they're discussing what they're going to do next. suddenly an artillery barrage starts marching toward them. you fire artillery, you want to get closer to your subjects. everybody ducks bept patton and macarthur, they're standing there talking. he says, i wasn't about to duck, he wasn't, and they couldn't show each other up. they pass safely. since that happened in 1918 there have been a lot of stories blossomed out of it saying patton shook and says, never worry, you never hear the one that get it. i researched that for four years and found out that's fake. writers writing dime store paper

backs fabricated this story and it grew from there. you usually find it in macarthur books. it really was a fabricated story. the two just stood there while the barrage passed. patton got down to esse and his tanks were refusing to cross the bridge thinking it was mined. he walks across the bridge. he says later it was stupid. he goes into town and flushes germans out. he climbs on a tank to go into the next thoun, thames and he notices spant chipping. he jumps off, tankers don't realize, he has to run up behind them and say, turn around, let's get out of here because that was the only tank left. that was his first combat experience. you know, perform nobly. he wished it had lasted longer. the next attack is the

offensive, much further north. they put patton tanks on trains, move them up. the green light goes off, he loses contact with his tanks, moves onto the battlefield itself. tanks are getting stuck in the mud. he's digging them out. soldiers are refusing to move forward. he finds himself with about three or four guys and says, you know what, let's attack forward. let's keep the offensive going. he's on to the step, he takes four steps and gets shot in the abdomen. you see that x in the upper left hand corner. that's where he was shot. he returns to this spot in 1920 and takes this photograph and says, this is where i was shot. a private named angelo dragrabsm and pulls him into a fox hole and stops the bleeding. this is basically the end of patton's world war i military career. you can actually go -- i actually went to this area.

they don't know exactly the spot because it's changed over time. but there is a memorial to the troops from missouri that fought in world war i. they say if you stand on the back of that memorial and look at the field, that's where patton was shot. so, patton goes to the hospital, recovers from his wound and on his birthday, november 11th, he's in his tent writing about tank tactics and word comes down the war is over. man, is he bummed. here's he's trained his whole life for one great opportunity and it slipped through his fingers. the war is over. what is there now for patton? he returns to the states. he has two tours in hawaii. spends time back at ft. riley. on his second tour in hawaii, he really starts feeling sorry for himself. you know, his career, he starts to think is over. he's in his twilight, late 30s, so you know the world is over for him. and beatrice, his wife, is so

fascinated with the islands she writes a novel in the 1870s about pirates and hawaiian lore and think. george is very unsupportive of it. he's jealous. he can be petty at times. while this is all going on, beatrice's niece comes to hawaii on her way to the orient. and patton ends up having an affair with her. and her name is jean gordon and the same age at patton's oldest daughter. she was about 19, 20. beatrice was thinking about leaving him at this time. they said when they put jean gordon on the boat, george was jumping up and down, made a fool of himself. as they were walking away, the oldest daughter said, mom, why do you stay with dad? she says, i think he needs me more than i need him right now. he later poll guysed and they make up.

jean gordon pops up in patton's future. that wonderful weapon i told you about, the tank, is a very expensive weapon. the tank, is expensive weapon. and in 1920 the pentagon passes a budget with the pentagon, the war department passes a budget saying we can't afford to have a tank corps anymore. when patton returned from world war i goes to camp colt and this is where he meets a young dwight eisenhower. they talk tank tactics and ideas. beatrice tries to show mimi how to cook. it's not very successful. there was one story i read that eisenhower and patton would go driving around at night with a shotgun in their car looking for trouble. it kind of takes away from the presidential regal eisenhower, and makes it more of a warrior type of story. the tank corps split up. they gave some of the tanks to the infantry, some to the cavalry. some of the cavalrymen said we

need to make a separate tank core. patton is not part of this. he does not want to rock the boat. he goes back into the cavalry. so these other officers find an old civil war camp, because they realize if we do this at fort reilly, the others will see this and get rid of it. it was called camp knox. they turned it into a fort, and that's where they start developing tank theory and tactics on a world war ii scale. patton is eventually going to see this and want back in, as the military starts to grow again. he's a referee in a tank battle. it all starts to come back to him, the glory and fun of tanks. what will become the second armored division, he becomes a force and he begins to take more and more prominent positions. he ends up becoming the

commander of the second armored division which his son will later become in the 1970s, where they really earn the name patton zone. his wife writes a song for them that is still with them today. he does great things with it. he makes them do a road march from -- across three states for publicity for the tankers. during the louisiana maneuvers, he uses his own money to help when the tanks run out of gas. and whenever they interview generals, or major officers, in the press, in the radio, they would always find patton. there are a number of tapes of him, recordings of him talking about, you know, tanks, and the theme back then in the early '40s is how well the boys are being taken care of. he constantly talks about the young men, how proud he is of them. so patton's first assignment in world war ii is he's going to lead what's called operation torch. and so he's on -- this is the

uss monrovia. he's getting off in a small craft. now, what happened was as they came to the north frrn shores on november 8th, they swung his boat out on -- they were getting ready to lower it, and he gets this gut feeling and he turns to his, sort of his assistant, george meeks, an african-american soldier who basically keeps his uniform looking as good as it does, he says, george, i don't feel right without my ivory-handled pistols. would you go get them for me. and the back blast from the back canons crush the little boat and they have to drop it over the side. and you kind of adds to the intuition that he knew something bad was going to happen. all of his stuff was lost except the ivory-handled pistols that he's so well known for. he was supposed to land at 8:00 a.m. he actually lands at 12:00, because of this naval battle.

as he gets into the craft he tips his helmet to those onboard. he eats it up. in fact, there's george right there. george meeks, that gentleman right there. patton meets him in 1928 when he goes to fort reilly on one of his tours. and the house that the pattons move into, the people that were there previously say, oh, we've got a great cleaning lady, you should use her. and she's got this boyfriend, and he's george meeks, who's a private in the army. he fought in world war i. the problem is this woman was married and george was married, but not to each other. beatrice puttton said we won't have any of this. so she forced them to divorce their respective mates and marry each other. patton says to them in exile while writing his wife, and george meeks says, i try to write mine as much as i can. but that's fiction. george meeks couldn't read or

write. he admitted to that fact. but he said he was the only person that could give general patton orders. of course, those were what to wear for the day. but he took a lot of pride in that. so patton makes it ashore. i'm going to back up a little bit. during the planning of operation torch, and basically operation torch is three landings along the north coast of africa to get the united states involved in the war in europe. and patton's only attack is on the far west coast in morocco, is purely american. it's going to leave in the united states and arrive in moroc morocco. during the planning stage, the british tell patton, we think your landing is irrelevant. patton would get furious. he was stationed in washington at the time. he got so mad one day he came home to his house, and he picked up a small statue, that his wife had purchased in hawaii, it was a lava carving. they named it charlie. it was a war god. and it was supposed to bring

warriors good luck. patton takes charlie out into the backyard and throws it into the pond and says, this is such a mess, i'm so angry. so patton takes this ship onto shore, and the first thing he sees is a british officer in an american uniform walking up to him holding charlie. that's charlie right there. the british officer is robert enri quez. patton said, what's going on? and he tells him, listen, wife gave this to me. she went and fished it out of the pond and gave it to me. he was his liaison officer with the british. he said give this to georgie when he lands, it will bring him good luck. that's the first thing patton sees when he steps ashore. once he takes the statue, he sees guys in foxholes not doing anything, no sense of urgency on the beach. and an arab with a donkey picking up american equipment and throwing it on the donkey's

back. patton eyes him. and suddenly the arab starts to put an american rifle onto the donkey's back. patton pulls out his ivory handled pistol, and the arab got the message, he dropped the rifle and he and the donkey took off. the second day patton goes down to the beach to work the first order of the war, to stop the troops from landing on the beach. and land without getting wet. he comes down to the beach the next day and they're still laying on the beach. he's furious. he goes into the surf waist deep, trying to direct people, a ship overturns, they have to take dead bodies out of the water. he handed his camera to enriquez. he liked this photograph so much. this is one of the first ones he

sends home to beatrice. he said this picture of me is so good, we should make it a magazine cover. here he is with a whole 24 hours of battle under his belt, and here he got his picture on the cover of "life" magazine. the battle lasts three days. he takes morocco on november 11th. he said this is a great birthday present for me. the french surrender before the attack commences. patton goes from a western task force commander to sort of a civilian military district manager. he's in charge of the whole western side of north africa. he's making sure everybody's trained, deals with a lot of drunken soldiers that get in his face and yells at them and he makes sure they go right off to jail. he said it was mostly air force guys that were complaining. the infantry guys kept themselves wired tight, but it was the air force guys that didn't like the discomforts of north africa that did the most

complaining. if you've seen the movie "patton," there's a scene in the beginning where he gets an award from a pasha in morocco. he said the lions in their den tremble of their approach. that was actually written on the back of the medal in french. if you look at the photographs, the official army photographs, this gentleman is in them. and the photographer assumed that that was the persha of morocco. he's not. he's the grand adviser. this is the pasha's son. that was a very long-held mistake, historically, that this is the leader. i think they just assumed because he was old that he was. patton would go on fishing trips with the pasha. he would go for dinners and lunches. he hated it. there was a lot of ceremony. and it was not war. you know, the war's going on in tunisia. he wants to be part of it. but he feels like he's been left behind and forgotten. luckily for patton, the germans