they knew who he was, you know? i want to ride a white horse. all we have is white ones. i remember him saying that. i have one i think you might like to ride. she said you see that one over there? hitler bought that for hirohito, but it never got there. that was his happy day, he got to ride that one horse. i stayed there a day with him. bradley came and got me and he brought me back. i went back to germany, and he stayed there and i had to get all his stuff ready because -- out of his van and get all the papers and the matches and roll it up because he was going to leave. the war was over, i stayed there until november to get him squared away. okay. so i got everything squared away. he told me i should take -- it needs to be done. so they sent me back to a little camp, german camp. i stayed there for three weeks. and then november i got him all squared away. he had two guards, two bodyguards. every place we went, he had bodyguards either ahead of or behind me. in france, his bodyguards weren't with him, but i know if they're with him, for a while, enjoy the victory. but the big story, fascination. i got my names in some books because of the assassination, but i didn't know nothing about it. like to go hunting. they were taking him hunting. so you didn't see the picture. you have to see the picture. the cadillac and it hit the front end. it was the piece of glass that was broken. but he got hit in the head with the back. how we don't know. two guys were riding in the back. trying to figure this out, but it will never come up. i guess not. they assassinated him. so now he's buried in luxembourg. they buried him in the cemetery, right in the center of the cemetery. i've got a picture they sent me. they put him up on the front on the left-hand side. if you ever go to the cemetery in luxembourg, he's on the left-hand side, by the big monument. where is george patton buried? so now it's right there. you can see. you can see. okay. now, one i'm going to tell you -- i'm going to tell you about the red cross. now, the red cross they tried. and they were over there and some -- you'd get what you wanted, you give them a donation or they'd charge you for something. so one day we were going -- all the organizations, and getting ready for the basston and the battle of the bulge. here's a good place over there. we went in and there was a red cross truck there. a bunch of soldiers. they didn't call them donors, but called them crawlers. two crawlers and a cup of coffee. where are you going, george? so okay, so he said do you want a cup of coffee? said yes, sir. i drove up to the truck. she gave me two crawlers and a cup of coffee. ten francs. the government made our money over there, american money. war time money. so i gave her the -- gave her ten francs. he said, did you pay her for that? yeah, ten franc notes. stay here. i stayed there, sat there and he went over there and he said, i'd like to have the crawler and a cup of coffee. the two sisters from el paso, texas, they were in this truck. and she said, general, you don't have to pay for yours. he said why? my boys pay for it? yeah. ten francs, two doughnuts, a crawler and a cup of coffee. so why don't you keep this money? he said, in the back of the orange crate. you remember orange crate, they had the departments. she had all this paper money. opened the back door, pulled out the box. all this money was this this box, you know? he carried it. he had a cigarette lighter, a tiny one. and he picked up one of the notes and lit it. and he threw it down with all the money. he burned it all up and so burned it. he came to the jeep. and he dug a hole, he buried all of the ashes. we stayed there -- until all of the ashes burned. when you go back and you tell your commander that you ran into george s. patton and that was taken care of. i didn't know what to say, you know? so i sat in the jeep. i said, you should have gave me that money, i could have used it. i'll write you a check right now. he was one -- he was one of us, you know? oh, we had -- we had this meeting at 3:00 in the morning. we had the rainstorm, and all the mud. so general patton and general eisenhower did not sit together. everybody is in the service, the school -- so every time we had a meeting with eisenhower and patton, bradley had to go along. bradley was the speaker. did you ever see the movie, you find bradley in middle. eisenhower on one side, patton on the other. patton didn't care for him on account of the general from england. montgomery. general montgomery. montgomery and eisenhower are pretty good buddies. every time patton -- eisenhower would say, george, have you seen eisenhower? he's back there in the car drinking tea. you see him back there. they wouldn't talk the each other. he'd come out, we had that meeting at 3:00 in the morning, we went there and hodges and marshall and brandy was there. we got there and eisenhower wasn't there yet. early in the morning, 3:00 in the morning. i heard eisenhower with the big cadillac, with the big cadillac, you know? where's your garrison hat and patton says where's your helmet you're on the front lines, you wear a helmet. you're on the front lines. he said yep, i don't have to wear it. okay. let me turn the jeep around. so we went back. we left him there. never heard nothing no more from him. nothing. so that was it. i said -- then eisenhower told him, my army is going to take this little town and so and so. okay. by time montgomery was in there, we went through that town already, you know? he always -- whenever he knew montgomery was going to do something he'd go fight for it. you know, he had a pattern of his own. he would capture. always made a circle. one time he captured 6,000 japanese. german kids. his ideas are making -- you're making circles. he could cut them all. would get cut off. we had 6,000 kids. but montgomery and eisenhower, they were pretty good. patton and -- and eisenhower -- now, i'll tell you how many jeeps was made during the war? the jeep company made 3 million jeeps. and it was -- it was almost at the end of the year. they had bantam jeep a little smaller than the jeeps they made 285 of them. you know how many jeeps we have running around this country? i took him -- we were hunting in areas to fight. but he wanted to go and find places where we could put trucks. and that we were going to hit. and i picked him up one day. the roads are bad. the roads were very bad. i didn't have to hit -- you hit one bounce, you miss two. you're bouncing around. so one night, i hit the hole. i had a big hole. i must have raised him six inches off the seat. i always wore my helmet, you know? so he didn't say nothing to me. looked at me. he said, can you see better now? and i used to take him to army hospital -- to the hospitals, you know? that was bad. every thursday we'd go to a hospital. the hospital, they were tents, he'd what boxful of purple hearts and medals. he'd pick a thursday to go to the hospital. all dressed up nicely to go see them all. so i couldn't believe -- i couldn't leave the jeep. i had to stay there. i couldn't go inside the hospitals. i stayed there half the day, i did half a day, just to stay with the jeep. no matter where i went with him. if he walked half a mile. and he said, if you see me there, don't you come and get me. let me come walking, so he'd get his exercise. i'd stay there. never did he call me. never what my name was. all me knows of me was soldier. i made -- i never got paid for that. i knew nothing about it. oh, you know, people know, the jeeps -- how many jeeps, a circle over the hood, you noticed that? it's on the automobiles. a circle around there, and the outside of the star was painted. so if the germans or somebody, it's red, so we knew right away we had to wear our gas mask. when we invaded france, we had our gas masks with us. and when we got into charleroi, they wouldn't gather our soldiers at the same time. so we didn't use those gas masks. oh, when we were in charleroi, he came down, we painted his truck. we painted his truck, did all of the colors and then he came down to see it. we were there and they were bombing us at the same time. we came down off the little hill where the little truck was. here comes bing crosby and dinah shore. bing crosby had a violin player. he was very good. so this was about 8:00 at night and bing crosby and dinah shore was there with us. you know? so the bombs were getting too close to where we were, so we laid on the ground. even the generals, we all laid on the ground. he stayed there. he had a microphone with the battery microphone. and invited -- and while the bombs were going on he sang "white christmas" for us in july. bing crosby did. yeah. and when we were coming down, i walked down with him. and i had -- them days we didn't have the pens like today. i had some fresh notes and i had him sign them. and dinah shore signed it for me and bing crosby was singing. he said where in the hell did you buy this pen, in england? it won't write. and then for mother's day when dinah shore was over there, we were there. and went and to the foxholes and gave the guys white carnations. all the white carnations. and when we got into munich, munich is in germany. it's called -- they call it munchkin, and glenn miller and his band was there. they went down to the ocean. he had johnny who took over glenn miller band. so they got into munich and then munich, there was a radio station. so they fixed it all up and reopened the radio station. so they had -- they had to give it a name. so they called it munchkin. we called it munich. then on at 12:00 every day. so he did -- luncheon at munchkin. it worked out nicely for him. i'm trying to find something i can tell you, i had it written down. i don't want to forget them. oh, theal bos. we went to germany and germany, they were bombing us pretty close. when the bomber hit the ground, it wouldn't go off. and they find out we had -- why it didn't go off. the german people would send the bombs out, but they wouldn't put detonators into the bombs. they'd go down and they would -- they didn't want to be bombing their own towns, you know? so all the bombs that the germans dropped were a waste of time. well, they were coming home. i had 12 -- i kept them in the jeep, you know? so i was supposed to get rid of them. he told me, he said, i want you to get rid of these. go up to the danube river and throw them in there. i went up there and it was smoke bombs. i got -- all of a sudden, i saw the smoke coming out. doing it for a while and then all of a sudden i saw a lot of fish with the white bellies floating right down. i had to get rid of them. i told him about it. better the dead fish than some kids. the germans, they're smart, i guess. we had no tops on our cars, our trucks, we had no tops on it. they started to put piano wires across the road. i hit one one time. boy, it hit the jeep and right away, they got wire cutters in all the jeeps. and then they got on to that and maybe you have seen them, on the bumper. you had an arrow that went this way and it was sharp and they got on to that and so they quit doing that. i don't want to forget something, so hold on a minute. oh. when we went into munich, i robbed a bank at munich. there was -- oh, i'll tell you about eight women in there. that's no men, it was all women where we went. so they all, comrade, comrade, so i went to the vault. looking for gold. i couldn't find any gold. so i had a duffel bag and i put some money in the duffel bag. i said, i left the little bank at home. that's something in it. but i never opened it. i don't know manywhat's in it. so i kept that money. so the war was over, it's when i was there, i waited for the ship to come home. a lady was coming around washing your clothes and she used to wash my clothes. we waited everyday for them to come back, nice clean fresh clothes. so on the way home, i could only cash in $360, they gave me for the money i had. so i had $360. so i had this money. i said, what am i going to do with it. so i gave to this lady, she had two kids. she kissed my hands. like i gave her a million dollars. i gave her all the money i had. oh, we were in france, we stayed there for three months, getting ready for bastone, battle of the bulge. we were there for three months, we stayed there. we stayed in a place in a wine barrel factory where they made the wooden barrels for wine, wine barrels. and all women, no men. all women working. so they found a place we could stay. we had first platoon system and the officers and two houses and a bungalow. so we slept in the houses and officers slept in the bungalows. we stayed there for three months. okay, so we get everything ready. we're going to get into bastone for battle of the bulge. so after three months, we're moving forward. that's when we were looking for areas to move the organizations to get closer to the front. and patton says to me, stay here, pick a lieutenant and we when we move out tomorrow, we are supposed to move out of there and check the place before we leave. okay. so around 4:00 in the afternoon, they all pull out. i mess a guy from galveston, texas. they both stayed there. we slept in the officer's bungalow. so we left that morning and we headed out and said, we have to go down to the office down here and we have to check out. i said, okay, so i went there and there was a lady, she must have been about 45, 50 years old. he said take her and go down and read the meters. i said, what meters. he said, electric meters. he said, you know how to read them. yeah. a thousand, whatever it is, he said, read them. i read them, brought them back it him, and then, you had a pink sheet of paper and we had to pay rent for the houses we stayed there for three months. now this was -- this killed us. i mean, we stayed there, we free them, and now we have to pay them because we used their property. we had to pay for gas, lights, water, rent for the place. so you know where your tax money goes. patton went off for two months. we were in mint for two months. i stayed with our company. i had to carry the mail. i had a private seat in my jeep with a zipper on it for important papers, i put them in the seat so they couldn't find them. okay. so yeah, i today go there. we left there. and where did we go from there? rob the bank, the jeep -- okay. >> we have just a few minutes left. can we devote those to questions? let's give these gentlemen a round of applause. [ applause ] >> we do have a couple minutes left for questions. any questions from the audience? speak loudly, please. >> holler. >> use the microphone, there, shawn. >> i would like it know, was there ever a time you felt like giving up? >> the question was, were there times when you just thought about giving up, that things were just too hard? >> i can't hear you. >> the question was, were there times during your service when things got so bad, you thought about giving up. things were just too hard? >> oh, no, no, no. that was a good life for me. >> all right, general titus? >> i can't imagine. i can't imagine. >> all right. another question? >> i went to -- [ inaudible ] [ inaudible ] [ laughter ] >> all right. >> i enjoyed being with him. [ inaudible ] i liked it. >> all right. >> sir, i was wondering if you could elaborate, why did you rob the bank? >> what would you rob a bank for? [ applause ] i was looking for that gold. there was a lot of money floating around. i brought a couple million dollars home with me, you would know it. and i had a son, frank. and said, dad, what are you going to do with this? i said, it's no good. i live in napa. and he went over and said, give me one of them. so he came home and he had $2,000 in an envelope. and he said, i put $45,000 in the bank for myself. i said, thanks. the money's no good. he said, yes it is. so two days later here comes a lady from the bank to my house. so okay, so and she said, is frank here? i said, no. and then i knew who she was and what she was with. i should have told her he went to germany, but i didn't tell her that. so an she said, i said, what the matter. well, we cashed money for him from germany and they called in san francisco and they told him the money was good but it wasn't good. it expired in 1975 or something like that. and she said, you know, i gave him $2,000 cash. i said, geez, i don't know where he's at, you know. but she said, i'm responsible for that. so i went in the house, are you looking for this? oh, her heart, yes, she says. so the german money was dead after 1975. they today make new money. but i did rob -- i did a lot of things. i stole a lot -- i stole -- the jeep, i modified his jeep. it was getting ready to get burned so i spotted a mercedes benz. there was a mercedes benz, that damn car, it was there everyday. so i opened the door, the door opened and they had a nice bucket seat. the mercedes. >> all right, we have to wrap things up here. >> i'm sorry. >> old it a minute. hold it a minute. >> a round of applause. >> i put that jeep out of there and i put patton's jeep and boy he was in paradise mercedes seat. i did a lot of stuff. i stole a lot of stuff. i stole a lot of cars. i was not -- i was a good boy. >> thank you, sir.
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