In Billo’s version, Patton slaughters unarmed Nazi prisoners of war…
We all remember the Malmedy smear, for which O’Reilly has never either apologized or corrected the record:
In Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces who had their hands in the air and were unarmed and they shot them dead, you know that. That's on the record. And documented."
O’Reilly in fact had it completely reversed: At Malmedy, it was American troops who were massacred by SS guards, not the other way around.
Not only did O’Reilly never correct the insulting gaffe, a year later he repeated it:
In Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured SS forces who had their hands in the air, and they were unarmed, and they shot them down. You know that. That’s on the record, been documented. In Iwo Jima, the same thing occurred. Japanese attempted to surrender, and they were burned in their caves.
As Robert Parry observes:
O’Reilly also engages in historical revisionism with his explanation that the small number of Japanese POWs at Iwo Jima and other Pacific battles is proof that U.S. Marines committed systematic murder. According to most historical accounts, the Americans wanted the Japanese soldiers to surrender but they chose to fight to the death.