his bodyguards weren't with him, but i know if they were with him, he would have been alive for awhile and enjoyed his victory. but there's a big story, assassination, they got some books and i got my name in some books, and the assassination, but i didn't know nothing about it. he liked to go hunting. they were taking him hunting. so well you didn't see the picture. you got to see the picture. the cadillac had a gi truck and it hit the front end and there wasn't a piece of glass broken. he got hit in the head, we don't

know. two guys rode in the back, and they were trying to figure it out but it won't come up, i guess not. they assassinated him. so now he is buried in luxemburg. they buried him right in the center of the cemetery. so i got a picture they sent me. they dug him up and put him in the front on the left-hand side, if you ever go to the cemetery in luxembourg, he is on the left-hand side with a big monument there. every time people see him, they say, where is george patton buried. now it is there, you can see it. okay, now, one i'm going to tell you about the red cross. now the red cross, they tried. they were over there and sometimes, if you get what you want or something, you have donation or they charge ten frank notes or something like this. so one day we were looking for an area to move all of the

organizations up north to get ready for the bastone. here is a good place over there. there was a red cross truck there. with a bunch of soldiers. didn't call them doughnuts, they called them crawlers. two little crawlers and cup of coffee for ten franks or something like that. so they all wave and say, where you going george? going to berlin to get that paper hanger. okay. so you want to have a cup of coffee? yes, sir. so i drove up to the truck and she gave me two crullers and a cup of coffee. she said ten frank -- francs. so we have american money, war time money, so i gave her ten

francs and i came back. he said, did you pay for that? i said yeah ten franc notes. okay, so stay here. so i stayed there. just sat there. and he went over there and he said, i would like to have a cruller with a cup of coffee. and the two sisters from el paso, texas were in this truck. and she said, general, you don't have to pay for yours. he said, why? did my boys pay for it? she said yes. ten francs for two doughnuts and a cup of coffee. so he says, why don't you keep the money. in the back was an orange crate. you people don't remember orange crates. there were two compartments. and she had all this paper money in the compartment. she opened the back door, pulled out the box and all this money was in the box and he carried a cigarette lighter. he used to smoke a cigar with. a little tiny cigarette lighter. he picked up one of them note and he lit it. and he threw it down with all the money. all the money burned. he burned it all up.

them girls turned white. so he came to the jeep. you know, you got the side of the jeep with the shovel. he dug a hole. he buried all the ash. we stayed there to burn out, burned it all up nice. he said, when you go back, you tell your commander that you run into george s. patton and that is taken care of. she didn't know what to say. so he sat in the jeep and i said, general, you should have gave me that money. i said, i could use it. he said, i'll make you a check right now, he says. he was one of us, you know. oh, we had this meeting at 3:00 in the morning. and we had a rainstorm. and working in the mud. so general patton and general eisenhower didn't work together.

weren't buddy-buddy. but everybody is in the services and school. so every time we had a meeting with eisenhower and patton, bradley had to go along. bradley was the speaker. if you saw the movie or some place, always find bradley in the middle, eisenhower on one side and patton on the other. and patton didn't care too much for him on the account of the general from england, montgomery, general montgomery. montgomery and eisenhower were pretty good buddies. every time patton would come, eisenhower would come see us and george, did you see eisenhower? yeah, he is back there drinking tea, he says. you see him back there. he pushed his way and they wouldn't talk to each other.

he came out, we had that meeting at 3:00 in the morning. we went there. and hodges and marshall and bradley was there. we got there and eisenhower wasn't there yet. early in the morning, 3:00, 3:00 in the morning. and here comes eisenhower with the big cadillac. big brush cadillac, you know. and where is the garrison hat? and patton says, where is your helmet? you come to the front lines, you know, and he said yeah. but said i don't have to wear it. he said okay. turn the jeep around so we went back.

we left it there. never heard nothing no more from him, nobody, never heard. so that was a -- that's the way he worked, you know. then he would get, eisenhower would tell him to shut up, he is taking this town. so okay. by the time montgomery was there, we went through that town already. whatever he knew montgomery would do something, he would go fight it and get him. he had a pattern of his own. and would he catch it. always made a circle. every time he comes, but one time he captured 6,000 japanese, german kids. and it's his idea to make circles, you know. you make a circle. and he could cut off. 6,000 kids we had. but montgomery and eisenhower, they clicked pretty good. but patton and eisenhower weren't too good. now, i tell you how many jeeps was made during the war.

the willies company made 3 million jeeps. ford company made 2 million jeeps. at the end of the war, a little smaller than the jeeps that they made 285 of them. so you know how many jeeps we got running around this country? i took him, we were hunting, going and getting areas to fight. he wanted to go and find places where we could put trucks that we would be safe for this, to hit in bastone. and i took him up one day. the roads are bad. the roads are very bad. and you would have to hit -- you hit one bounce, you miss. you hit one bounce, you miss two. you hit two and miss one.

you bounce around. so one night i hit the hole. i must have raised him six inches off his seat. i always wore my helmet. so he didn't say nothing to me. then i straighten up my helmet. he said, can you see better now? i used to take him to the hospitals, you know. that was bad. every thursday we would go to a hospital. the hospitals were tents. and he would have a box full of purple hearts or medals. so a day he picked, on thursday, going to the hospital. all dressed up nice to go see them all. and i couldn't leave the jeep. i had to stay there. i couldn't go inside the hospitals.

i stayed there and waited. if i stayed there a half a day, ways there half a day. just with the jeep. no matter where i went with him. if he walked a half a mile, and he said, if you see me there, he said, don't you come and get me come walking. so i would stay there until he comes to the jeep. never did he call me. never knew my name was. all he knew of me was "soldier." i made technician fourth grade, he put it a rank for me. i never got paid for that or heard nothing about it. oh, you know, the jeeps, there was a circle over the hood with a star in the middle. you notice that? that star is so airplanes to spot our automobiles and the circle around the star was painted so if the germans or somebody used mustard gas or something that paint would become red so we knew right away that we had to wear our gas masks. but when we invaded france, we had our gas masks with us, and

they figured they wouldn't gas their soldiers at the same time, so we didn't use the gas masks at all. oh. when we were in shataroy, he came down and painted his truck. he painted his truck an auto draft color. we were there and they were bombing us at the same time. we were coming down off where the truck was and bing crosby and dinah shore came up. while we were being bombed there. and bing crosby had a violin. this was about 10:00 at night. and bing and dina were there with us. and when the bombs were close to where we were and so everybody

laid on the ground. even the general. we all laid on the ground. he stayed there and had a microphone and a violin. and while becomes were going, he sang white christmas for us in july. bing crosby did. and when we were coming down, i walked down with them. and i had pens. we didn't have the pens you have today. we had the pens you had to fill up with ink. you remember those? and i had notes that dinah shore signed them and bing crosby signed them. and he said, where the hell did you buy these pens? england? it won't write. and then when she was there and we were going around the fox holes, men were giving her white carnations. and when we got into munich, munich is in germany.

they call it munchin. we call it munich in america. so glen miller came down and they came down the ocean. johnny took over the band and he said, you know, they got into it in munich. there was a radio station there. so they fixed it all up and reopened the radio station. so they had to give it a name. so they call it munchin and we call it munich and at 12:00 every day. so luncheon at munchin. it worked out nice.

>> i'm trying to find something that i can tell you that -- i had it written down and i don't want to forget them. oh, the bombs. we went into germany and german planes were bombing us pretty close. but when the bomb would hit the ground, they wouldn't go off. they would find out we had -- the german people would send bombs out but they wouldn't put the detonators into the bombs. they would just go down and they would -- they didn't want to be bombing their own towns, you know. so all the bombs that germans dropped were just a waste of time.

when we were coming home, we had 12 bombs i always kept in my jeep, you know. so i was supposed to get rid of them. they told me, he says, i want you to get rid of these. and i don't care what you do with them, go up to the river and throw them in there. so that's what i did. i went up there, and they were small smoke bombs. i pulled the pin on one and then i saw bubbles going up with smoke. then all of a sudden i saw a lot of fish with the white bellies floating right down. and i told him about it. he said, well it was better to kill the fish than some kids pick up the bomb and kill them, you know. they were worried about the children. then the germans, they got

smart, i guess. americans had no tops on our cars. our truck and jeeps, there was no top on them. they started putting piano wire across the road. i hit one one time. i tell you, boy, you know, right away they got the wire cutters on all the jeeps and weapons carriers. and then they got on to that. but maybe you've seen them, they were on the bar on the bumper and an arrow this way and it was sharp. it would hit it and break it. they got on to that, so they quit doing that. what else can i tell you about. i don't want to forget something, so just hold on a minute. oh, when we went into munich, i robbed a bank in munich. there was, oh, i think about eight women in there. no men, it was all women wherever you went. so okay, they all, oh, comrade, comrade.

comrade hell, i'm here for something here. i went to the vault and i was looking for gold. i had a duffel bag. i put it in the duffel bag. so they had some little banks there and i said they is a bank at home. there is something in there but i never opened it. a little german bank, for the kids, you know. so i kept the money. so when the war was over, i went for the ship, i was coming home. in the harbor in france. 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 that bag of money i had. so i cashed over with the german money. i got $360 in the post office. 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. this will kill you. we were in france, we stayed there for three months.

we were getting ready for bastone and 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. he says, i want to you stay here. when we move out tomorrow, about 4:00 in the afternoon they all

moved out. and he says, we have to go down here to check out. so i went there and there was a lady who was around 45, 50 years old. she says, take her and read the meters. i said, what meters? and she said the electric meters. we read them, brought them back to them, and then he had a pink sheet of paper and we had to pay rent for the houses we stayed there for three months.

we stayed there. we stayed in a place, in a barrels and all women, there were no men, all women were working there. we found a place that we could stay there. and also for two months we are in mets and i had to carry the mail. i had a private seat in my jeep with a zipper on it. i -- so -- okay. so -- yeah, i had to go there we left there.

and where did we go from there? >> we have just the few minutes left. should we devote those to questions? all right. 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. >> use the microphone.

>> i would like to know what it felt like given -- were there times when you thought about giving up, that things were just too hard? >> the question was, were were times during your service when things got so bad you thought about giving up? things were just too hard? >> that was a good one. >> general titus. >> i can't imagine. i can't imagine giving up. >> another question?

>> all right. >> okay. i was wondering if you could elaborate, why did you rob the

bank? [ applause ] >> there was not a lot of money floating around. i brought several million dollars home. i have a son that said, dad, what are we going to do with this here? i said, they are no good. so he goes to the bank of -- from napa, california. and he would say, get me one of them. so he would come home and had $2,000 in an envelope. he said, i put $45,000 in the bank. and here comes a lady and i knew who she was and i should have told her that she went to germany but i didn't tell her that. so i said, what's the matter? she said, we cashed the money from germany and they told me the money was good but it wasn't. and she says i gave her $2,000 cash. i said, geez, i don't know where

it's at. she said, i'm responsible for that. and so i went in the house and i said, are you looking for this? her heart -- she's like, so we had the money -- the german money was dead after 1975, we had to make new money. but i did rob -- i did a lot of things. i stole a lot of things. his jeep was about to get into berlin. i spotted a mercedes benz. i used to pick up the mail and that blue car was there every day. so i opened the door, the door

opened. and they had a nice bucket seat. >> okay, mr. sanza, we're going to have to wrap things up. sorry about that. good stories. >> okay. >> round of applause for these two. >> i put that jeep out of there. boy, he was in paradise. i did a lot of stuff. i stole a lot of stuff. i stole a lot of cars. i mean, i was a good boy. >> all right. thank you, sir. two great examples of living history at its best. thank you very much for being with us. tommy, 14 years.

>> thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. next weekend, book tv and american history tv explore the history and literary culture of beaumont. saturday on c-span 2, it's the challenges of running an independent bookstore. also, beamont, texas and c-span 3, sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. the lucas gusher changed the economy at texas and helped usher in the petroleum age. with the old came the rough necks and with the rough necks bikes. turning the dixie hotel into

decades of prostitution and g gambling and other crime. next weekend on c-span 2 and 3. history bookshelf features popular american history writers of the past decade and airs on american history tv every saturday at noon eastern. this week, joseph ellis talks about his book, triumph and tragedies at the founding of the repup lick. it recounts the founding of the united states and during this hour-long event hosted by the new york historical society, interviewed by senior editor richard burkhiser. >> we are very proud to