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 bib