err worry, knowing he was swimming these rivers under fire. patton gets into germany and says, this is the worst destruction he saw driving along the road here. i think it was four miles of destroyed vehicles. and what happened was, elements of the 12th armored division, basically came up on a german retreating column and just turned their guns sideways and basically blew them off the road. patton said by the time he got there, there were no dead bodies, but unfortunately there were a lot of dead horses, which made him upset. i believe this is the commander of his air force right no. he's taken a nice photo. i can't remember his name right now. oh, the fun one. this is patton crossing the rhine river. he's about to do something here. but he has his assistant take a clean photograph he can send to his wife. and in about five seconds he's going to relieve himself in the river. i know this for a fact. it's in my book. because the photograph of him

actually doing it, this photograph was taken by charles codman, his assistant. what happened was codman snaps this picture, and then turns to walk away, when someone behind codman snaps a picture. you see patton doing his thing and codman holding the camera. so i know the exact sequence of this taken. he called it the pause that refreshes. when he gets to the other side of the river, he gets out of his vehicle and kind of -- i don't know if he pretends to fall down or really falls down, but he falls down and he comes up with two handfuls of dirt, and says, hence, william of orange. what he's doing is re-enacting of what william of orange did when he took a ship to invade england. he went to get out of his boat and fell and came up with two handfuls of sand and said i've taken england with both hands. i mentioned john waters before who had been captured. john spends the rest of the war in a p.o.w. camp.

on march 23rd, after crossing the rhine, patton realizes that third army is right in line with the p.o.w. camp where they believe he is. but third army gets orders to move northeast. he realizes he's not going to be able to liberate the town. so he puts together an add hock force of tanks and trucks and says bust through the lines, rescue this camp and bring everybody back. and people are like, is he doing this to rescue the soldiers or trying to get his son-in-law back. patton orders one of his assistants who knows john waters to participaticipate in it. he also doesn't order any air cover for this attack. i think it's telling that he's trying to keep this thing secret. he said one of the reasons is macarthur had done a great rescue of a p.o.w. camps in the philippines and wants to do something similar. these troops make it to the

camp. they liberate it. they think there's going to be about 300 guys there. there's about 5,000. and john waters goes out the gate, and a panicky german guard shoots him in the butt. they have to bring him back into the prison hospital, where he's going to remain. patton feels incredibly guilty about this. the next morning they go to leave the camp, this rescue force and the germans surrounded it overnight and just poured artillery fire on them. big black eye for third army. they covered it up. bradley realized how bad patton feels about it. there's no punishment needed, you're punishing yourself enough for it. two weeks later they liberate john waters. this is john in a hospital in frankfu frankfurt. he's definitely living the poor life in the last four years. but he had potato soup and was feeling better, he's getting his energy back. but i like to use the story of

john waters, talking about a larger facet of war. a lot of people talk about the stress on soldiers in combat. and that has its place. but it's also like throwing a rock in a pond. there's an effect larger than that. the reason i bring this up is, waters was mattered to patton's older daughter. in 1952 john goes off to fight in korea. and be it little "b" dies of a heart attack. patton's wife beatrice comes to her place to get the furniture and clear everything out. behind every bookcase, and drawer, and everything, they just find liquor bottle after liquor bottle. they realize she had been a closet alcoholic. the patton feel it began with waters' capture. i think that's a microcosm to the larger stress that combat brings to everyone. this is what's called mooseberg prison. this is where they brought a lot of the prisoners. when the failed raid on john

waters' prison takes place, patton rolls in here a few weeks later. the troops just go nuts. they're so happy. they've been liberated. they really identify that patton is their liberator. he comes in after a few tanks come crashing through the fence. and patton said it was a bittersweet moment. here they just are praising him to high glory, yet he writes in his diary, he said if i hadn't launched this raid, these guys would have been stuck here all these extra weeks. he climbs up on the tank and gives a speech. he said don't go running into the countryside, doing whatever you want. one more thing, stay out of my way, i'm still killing germans. and they loved it. a good example of research, and sometimes the things you find out when you've finished your research is just as interesting as what you find out during your research. when my book came out, i got a call from this gentleman right here. and he said, i was in that picture. i remember patton rolling in. he said it was two jeeps and a tank. and i believe this crowd here is

the actual tank. he said the first person patton shook hands with was a british raf officer. i notice that guy is not wearing an american hat. that is a british officer's hat. so i assume that's him. that's the thing that brings history alive. you deal with documents and pictures and things like that, and you have people come to you and say, i remember that. and your fear is they got it wrong. but he didn't. when the war ends, patton is actually in czechoslovakia. he is just bored. he misses the war. but he asked to come home on a war bonds tour. he goes back to what's called green meadows, massachusetts, where he and beatrice live and visit with his grandkids. he gets in a little bit of trouble, because he's speaking with wounded veterans on his left and his right and he says, people also praise those who died in war. well, these guys here are just as big of heroes as those who are dead. and a lot of people took offense

to that. they said he was belittling the memory of the dead. in his mind, he was praising the wounded. he said two things. he said everything was odd when he flew over boston, when he arrived. because all the houses had roofs. all the bridges were complete. this looks nothing like europe. this is so odd. and then in the middle of his speech he was talking about something and said, you know, when i was younger i weighed a lot less. the whole audience laughed. so he definitely had fun talking in front of people. this is the last photograph patton ever took. after he goes to the united states, he goes back to europe. and he kind of spends a nostalgia tour across europe. he goes up to stockholm sweden where he was in the olympics and he meets up with his fellow olympians and they have a pistol shoot and he wins. so they said, wow, george, in 1945, you won the 1912 olympics. the swedish army puts on a

drill, precision drill motorcycle team, goes through some paces for him. and he whippings out his camera and takes this photograph. ten days later he's going to be in a car accident that breaks his neck and results in his death. the army sends the camera home and beatrice develops the last roll of film and wrote underneath this photograph, this is the last picture my husband took. that's the majority of the sort of chronology. there's a few things -- photographs i've taken that i want to share with you. this is where patton had the famous car accident. where this car is, is where the truck that hit him was. and he was traveling this way, you know, towards the horizon. and the truck is going to turn into this sort of driveway here. the little red brick building. that's where they hit. what happened is there were two trucks. there was a railroad train crossing right here. and on the other side were two trucks. the first truck stalled out. the second truck pulled out from

behind. the second truck didn't see what was in front of him until it was too late. the accident happened about 35 miles an hour. patton is the only one hurt. breaks two vertebrae in his neck. he says, i think i'm paralyzed. rub my fingers. so gay starts rubbing his fingers, and he said, i think i'm paralyzed, rub my fingers. that's when he realizes how bad patton is. there have been a lot of rumors that, you know, that this was a conspiracy, that someone shot him in the side of the neck with the oss. it's all bunk. the big conspiracy theory, there was a show on the history channel recently, some guy wrote a book called "target patton." i actually helped him with some of his research. his theory is that the kgb that captures oss officers, and they told bill donovan, we'll give it back if you kill patton. i've got news for you, patton is

the one they always focused on. so the deal was, that this oss guy was standing on the side of the road, and he's going to shoot some sort of special air gun that was going to hit patton in the head and kill him. why he would be driving with a window down on december 20th, or december 9th, i have no idea. of course, there was a nurse in the room. every second that patton was in the hospital. so exactly how they did it, i don't know. i think it's that same thing, you know, you see with jfk, where somebody of such great importance, that a simple car accident just can't do this. you know? he did linger. i shouldn't say linger, because actually his voice was energetic for those nine, ten days in between. and if he had seen somebody shoot him, patton, pretty smart

guy, i think he would have noticed it. but he spent his time, beatrice flew in from boston. she would read books to him. and letters. a lot of letters poured in. and they kind of verbally kind of worked on some of his diary entries and things like that. because he wanted them to get published. he asked her to leave the room. that's when he expired. he didn't want her in the room when he died. oddly enough when he was in the united states visiting, he cornered his two daughters and he said, i'm going to say good-bye to you again because i'll never see you again. i have a feeling i'll see your mom. they're like, dad, what are you talking about, the war's over. he said, nope, everybody has so much luck. soldiers use theirs up faster than anybody else. as the war was going on, the enemy shells were landing closer to me and i escaped too many close calls. my number's going to be up. everything he said to the daughters was accurate. he did not see them again. but beatrice did fly to germany.

he died on december 20th, 1945. he never made it to '46. his plan was to come home to green meadows and turn it into a museum. he actually had army engineers sketch plans for what it would look like. he ends up dying here in heidelberg. a debate ensues, where should patton be buried. obviously back home in arlington cemetery. or back at his estate. the french government offers to bury him with napoleon, napoleon's tomb. there are a number of french generals buried there. the offer went to the patton family. while beatrice is debating this, keys said, you know what, he really should be buried with his men. beatrice said, that's it, exactly. they end up burying him in hamm, luxembourg. this is george meeks' assistant. he cried through the whole ceremony. but, you know, planes would fly in during the funeral. the trains would slow down for

about 20 years after that, every time they passed by the cemetery. but patton was buried in a common grave. but over the years, so many people trekked through just to see his grave, they had to move it to the front of the cemetery. i had mentioned jean gordon, patton had the affair with, after his death beatrice went to his brother-in-law and said, i would like to have a meeting with jean gordon. but i want it to be a surprise. don't tell her i'm asking for this. he said, sure. so jean gordon shows up in the office. and there's beatrice. she kind of stands there. and jean gordon is shocked. and beatrice lays out an hawaiian curse on her. one that, may the flesh run off your skin, and freaks her out. she screams and runs out of the room. two weeks later jean gordon commits suicide, puts her head in the oven and turns the gas on. carlo deste wrote about this and said the rumor, he had not been

able to verify it, that she left a note, i'm going to be with george before you. so in 1953, beatrice passes away. she had a blood clot to the brain, much like her husband, after she fell off a horse. the children want to bury her with him. the military says, no. only the soldiers are allowed to be buried there, no spouses, nobody else. so they cremate her, bury her in the backyard near a big tree, and about four years later they dig it up and put some of the ashes in an envelope, and they go to the cemetery just as it's closing and sprinkle her ashes over george's and rub it into the ground. so they were together at last. one thing about my buddy george, he was not sort of a pillar of social awareness. he definitely didn't like anybody who wasn't white. the real reason eisenhower canned him from third army was not really as much for the comparing the nazis to democrats and republicans, was he left a

lot of the jews still in their camps after liberation and put ss guards on the camps. at first this was a good idea, because these people had been starving to death for years. we need to regulate their food intake and all this kind of stuff. it's famous that patton threw up when he first went into one of these concentration camps and was disgusted with nazi philosophy. he wrote about it extensively. so as they're trying to reestablish these, what are called displaced persons, they bring in a whole bunch of sort of mobile port-a-potties, so you guys need to assemble these. thels people haven't had any decent treatment in years, so the equipment just stands there. and patton, in his impatience, says, okay, these people are beyond help. we can't help them. we need to close these things up and set them on fire. that's the kind of line that brings eisenhower down to patton's command for personal inspection and sees there are ss

guards in front of these old prisons and stuff. and patton says a few inappropriate 24i7ks to eisenhower and eisenhower is like, george, shut up. eisenhower realizes, i can't do this anymore. i've got to relieve patton. his public statements are a disgrace also. eisenhower tells his son, i did not fire patton for what he said. i said i fired him for what he's going to say next. he was going off at the jaw. but i digress. this is a rabbi, these are three rabbis that wanted to be present at patton's funeral. they said, we know about the things he said. however, what he did in world war ii saved thousands of lives. he made the war go by faster, liberated our camps, saved so many of us, that despite his prejudices, we are still going to pay tribute to him. so that's why they're there at the cemetery. and then finally, there's willie, waiting to go home. with patton's bags, back to the

united states. one of the questions i get a lot is when did willie die. i've asked all the patton family members, and they don't know. but they love to tell the anecdote that patton captured a bust of adolph hitler, and that willie would pee on it. i thought that was a cool trick to teach a dog. now, this next little series of photographs are sort of a then and now. from patton's photographs. so this is the temple of higha in sicily. he wanted to give perspective, so you have an idea. so you've got three pillars there, one that's really destroyed, the fourth, and then the next. that's what it looks like today. this has been a colony, a greek colony in sicily. and it's actually very well kept. if you drive along the north coast of sicily, it's very well advertised how to find it. this is clairmont.

remember, i mentioned between offensives, patton put all his tanks on a train and moved them up in world war i. these are where the tanks were moved off the trains so they could take part in the offensive. patton in world war ii revisits this site with one of his officers who had been with him in world war i. if you look closely, there's a clock here on the wall and a train schedule, right there. so i found that about two years ago, it's a defunct train station now, and it's a little obscure town. you can see where the old clock was. they've moved the clock. you can see where the schedule was. this is the church patton went to for christmas eve mass in luxembourg. and it was after the nas he was told by a chaplain that he went and sat in the front row right side pew, and the chaplain wrote him a letter afterwards and said, by the way, where you sat is the exact same spot where kaiser wilhelm sat in world war

i. this is actually in an alley in luxembourg city. when i snapped this picture, basically my back was up against the wall of the alley taking it. that was actually very hard to find. this is a castle in france. near le val. this is during the breakout when everything's going patton's way. they said this was captured twice since the third army -- before the third army took it. it dated back, i think, to the cardinal. i try to take people to patton's spots. you, yourself, can find yourself in the footsteps of patton. with that, we're going to open it up to questions. i was told to be reminded to step up to the microphone to ask. i'll do my darnedest to try to answer you. unless no one has any questions. yes, sir?

>> >> there you go. >> in the movie, the first part of the movie is a speech. >> yes. >> is that an accurate representation? and when and where did it occur? >> a, it was an accurate depiction. they did edit out a lot of lines. there was a lot of profanity in it, but along with that sort of inspirational stuff from the speech, he would talk about the importance of a truck driver. you know, he said think about the front line soldier. it's the truck driver bringing the supplies is just as important as the front line soldier. so there was a lot of practical information in these speeches also, the importance of staying dry, things like that. he basically gave it all around england prior to the invasion of norm normandy. a lot of army nurses didn't like it. they thought it was too aggressive.

other soldiers ate it up. but, yes, it's very accurate. in fact, i think charles province has a copy of the whole thing. some lieutenant typed it up while patton was giving it. he transcribed it in a book called "the unknown patton." side note, when francis ford copela wrote the script for the movie, he said this guy is so unique and so interesting, i can't do a conventional biography. i'll put him in front of an american flag and he'll give this great speech. he hands the script in to 20th century fox. they say, this is the stupidist idea we've ever seen and they fired him. they brought on another writer, and they said the script was so bad that they went back to copula's original. he was fixing film machines when he saw them putting the uniforms and costumes together. what are you doing? they said, we're making this movie "patton." he said, i wrote that. later he goes to make "the god father" and it's overbudget, behind schedule.

they were ready to fire him when he gets the academy award for writing "patton." they said, we can't fire him now. when he goes around the country and gives talks he tells film students, the stuff you get fired from in your 20s is stuff you get lifetime achievement awards when you're older. thank you. >> was patton as devout as the movie -- the perspective in the movie was? >> sure. >> did he say he read the bible. >> every goddamn day, yes. one of the great things about that movie is the quotes are accurate, they just place them in different places because it works better. when he rolled into polermo, h says, what do you want me to do, take it back? in the movie they use his lines. did i see where he said that.

that was a "stars and stripes" story where he made that remark about every day. you know what i'm talking about. very devoted. he was raised a protestant, but when he was born they thought he was going to die and they had an irish catholic nurse and she baptized him a catholic because she thought he was about to die on the delivery table. so when he got stronger they had a protestant baptism, but it's said that because of his catholic roots that were accidental, that he makes sure all the chaplins were catholic because he liked their marshal spirit. kept the bible by himself. could quote the bible like that. knew the bible very well. definitely feared god. when things went bad, god, why are you doing this to me. when things went well, he thanked god for them. i'm sure his church attendance went down. the famous prayer in the movie, that was long before the -- about a month before the battle of the bulge. he called the chaplain and said,

we need all these guys praying. they're not doing enough. that's kind of the origin of the prayer. it was patton's idea. he asked the chaplain, how many of these guys are going to sunday services. he said, well, not enough, sir. that was an element of the patton prayer was to get soldiers to go to church more to pray for the success of the third army. during the movie there was a big point made about his belief in reincarnation. one, is that true? two, could you elaborate on that? >> yes, very true. in the movie in north africa he drops to one knee and recites poetry. the poem is called through a glass and darkly. he looks up to bradley and said, do you know who wrote that? he says, i did. the poem is 12 stanzas long. in it each different stanza is about him m a different life in a different army in previous lives. when he goes to fight world war

i and he first arrives in france they tell him where his tank training area is going to be. he starts going down this road and he sees some officers that know the area. he says, listen, down there and to the left are some barracks, right? and they said, no. well, actually, yes, there's some old roman barracks. he goes, okay. if i keep going up the road to the right is a mess hall, right? they're like, no bsh -- well, actually, there's an old roman mess hall. it was kind of eerie. i know some historians theorize that he read so much history that as he got older he put himself in it. here he is in world war i. there's a well-november story with charles codman. they pull into a town called rag gansberg and they were crossing the danube. i remember crossing this river, there was this big rock to the right of us and napoleon was standing there going, let's go, come on, we've got to get into

russia. codman's cracking up. he says he's nuts. then he goes for a ride in the river and comes across a giant boulder. he says, how did the old man know that. i hope that will elaborate it nicely. >> couple of quick questions about photography itself. >> yeah. >> how often was he taking photos? was he doing this all day long? was it sporadic? can i ask real quick and then i'll sit down? >> yeah. >> how contemporaneously were they developed? how did the military feel about him taking all of these photographs. >> okay. god them. how often did he take the photographs? it varied. ironically, i would say he probably took the most in sicily while he was -- and then while he was in exile because he had nothing toels do while he was in exile and then during the sweep across france. the least amount is when he

first takes command in tunisia to fight the germans and the battle of the bulge when he's so busy. in fact, he supplements his photographs with gun camera photographs from the air force and with maps. when he first takes command of second court, a lot of behind the lines stuff, and the irony is in the movie "patton" the only time you see the camera is when he's explaining why they got their butts kicked. the next scene is in the battle of the bulge when he's standing there in the snow and says, damn, i'm proud of these men, and has the camera. the times he took the least photographs is where you actually see the camera around his neck. how about the developing of the pictures? varied. he would either send reels home to beatrice or he would have army photo officers develop them in theater. the quality would vary. there's a lot of them that are very poor quality.

what i did was i hired a photographer to snap the photographs out of the photo albums themselves. when we would come to these very deteriorated photographs, he explained to me, he said, kevin, the silver emulsion that they used to develop a photograph was of a poor quality when he was in this part of the world because that's why this photograph looks that way. some of them are very clear and other ones, the images are so degraded you can barely figure out what he's taking photos of. like i said, it was varied. sometimes he would send the reels home, sometimes develop them in theater. i know he had engineers develop some sort of quick rewind device. the last one was how did the high command think about -- here's a soldier taking pictures on the battle told? i have never seen anything positive or negative about it. i don't think that intelligent thinking had caught up with the technology in world war ii. a number of army historians assigned to third army and other armies in europe told me they were all given the same camera

that patton has. it's called a lykon. it was german made. historians and reporters were issued cameras on the front lines. what would happen is in the development process somebody would look at it and if someone's patch was showing, they would put a white mark over it. if there was a street sign, they might white it out. they would go through a censoring process and patton sometimes did and sometimes didn't. you're watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on cspan 3. for more information follow us on twitter @cspan history. each week we sit in on a lecture. you can watch the classes here every saturday at 8:00 p.m., midnight and sundaes at 1:00 p.m. this week north