High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Rat Patrol is an American television program that aired on ABC during the 1966-1968 seasons. The show follows the exploits of four (three American and one British) Allied soldiers who are part of a long-range desert patrol group in the North African campaign during World War II. Their mission: "to attack, harass and wreak havoc on Field Marshal Rommel's vaunted Afrika Korps".The show was inspired by and loosely modelled on the New Zealand/British/Rhodesian Long Range Desert Group, which used modified trucks armed with machine guns as their transport through the treacherous desert terrain.