RON THE "WAR HERO"
L. RON HUBBARD AND THE U.S. NAVY, 1941-50
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. L. Ron Hubbard:
his struggle with truth *
If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice.
- The Joker, Batman: The Killing Joke (1989)
L. Ron Hubbard was commissioned into the Navy before the war ("A Brief
Biography of L. Ron Hubbard", 1960) or, alternatively, at its outbreak as a
lieutenant (junior grade) ("What Is Scientology?", 1992 edition). He was
ordered to the Philippines on the entry of the US into the war ("What Is
Scientology?", 1978 edition). Alternatively, he was landed from the USS
Edsall, on which he was the Gunnery Officer, on the north coast of Java on
the same day as Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. However, he was cut off near
Surabaya by invading Japanese forces in February 1942, and after a trek
through the jungle to the south coast, scrambled into a rubber raft and
sailed across the Timor Sea to within a hundred miles of the Australian
coast before being picked up by a friendly destroyer (Church of Scientology
v. Armstrong, 21 May 1984; also Dan Sherman, LRH Biographer, quoted in
Freedom magazine, Spring 1997).
As a further alternative, he first served in Australia where he coordinated
naval intelligence activities and was Senior Officer Present Ashore ("L.
Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle", 1990). He went to Java as a
counter-intelligence officer to organise relief for beleaguered American
forces on Bataan ("Ron The Poet/Lyricist", 1996).
While escaping from the Japanese on Java, he suffered severe injuries after
being machine-gunned in the back (Church of Scientology v. Armstrong, 21
May 1984). Alternatively, he fractured an ankle while evading the Japanese
("Ron The Poet/Lyricist", 1996). He was flown home in the Secretary of the
Navy's private plane as the first US casualty returned from the Far East
(Hubbard, "The Story of Dianetics & Scientology", taped lecture of 1958).
Another alternative states that during 1941-42 he served in Brisbane as a
mail officer manning the only anti-aircraft battery in Australia ("An
interview granted to the Australian Press on January 10th 1963 at Saint
Hill Manor ... by L. Ron Hubbard"). His posting ended when he was relieved
by fifteen officers of rank ("Mission into Time", 1973). As yet another
alternative, in 1941 he rewrote the Hydrographic Office Publications for
the US Navy (Hubbard, "Autobiographical notes for Peter Tompkins", 6 June
1972).
Arriving back in the US in March 1942, the shortage of skilled officers was
such that after a week in hospital he was ordered at once to the command of
a North Atlantic corvette (Hubbard, "The Story of Dianetics & Scientology",
taped lecture of 1958) which was the former British corvette, the Mist. He
saw service for the remainder of that year with British and American
anti-submarine vessels in the North Atlantic ("A Brief Biography of L. Ron
Hubbard", 1960). Ultimately he rose to command the Fourth British Corvette
Squadron ("A Short Biography of L. Ron Hubbard", The Auditor magazine,
issue 63). Alternatively, he commanded the subchaser USS YP-422 (aka USS
Mist) and turned its crew - to a man, all hardened criminals transferred
from Portsmouth Naval Prison - into the finest crew in the fleet (L. Ron
Hubbard: The Humanitarian, 1996).
In 1943, he was transferred to the North Pacific where he was made
Commodore of Corvette Squadrons ("Facts About L. Ron Hubbard - Things You
Should Know", Flag Divisional Directive 69RA of 8 March 1974, revised 7
April 1974). He fought and sunk one or, alternatively, two enemy submarines
off the Oregon coast in May 1943 ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle", 1990;
"Ron The Poet/Lyricist", 1996; "L. Ron Hubbard as a Naval Officer",
factsheet circulated by Church of Scientology of unknown but recent date).
The following years, 1944-45, he worked as an instructor at the Small Craft
Training Center in San Pedro, California ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle",
1990). He subsequently served with amphibious forces ("A Report to Members
of Parliament on Scientology", 1968) as Navigation Officer aboard the USS
Algol ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle", 1990). While aboard he wrote a
revolutionary textbook on navigation, greatly simplifying the art ("L. Ron
Hubbard: Master Mariner/Yachtsman", 1996). Some of his adventures aboard
the USS Algol were later made into a Hollywood film, Mr Roberts, by his
screenwriter friends ("A Brief Biography of L. Ron Hubbard", 1960; also
Hubbard, "Autobiographical notes for Peter Tompkins", 6 June 1972).
He later attended Princeton University as a post-graduate ("A Report to
Members of Parliament on Scientology", 1968) or, alternatively, attended
the US Navy's School of Government at Princeton as a student ("Who's Who in
the South and Southwest", ca. 1963 - entry on Hubbard; also "L. Ron Hubbard
- A Chronicle", 1990). As a further alternative, he saw action aboard a
destroyer in the Aleutians in late 1944 (Jack Williamson, Wonder's Child:
My Life in Science Fiction, 1984).
Hubbard ended the war (in 1944 or, alternatively, 1945) crippled and
blinded after an unexploded shell, which had landed on the deck of his ship
and which he was throwing overboard, exploded in his face (letter to
Hubbard family, quoted by L. Ron Hubbard Jr. in letter of 26 January 1973).
Alternatively, he had suffered flash-burn injuries to his eyes while
serving as Gunnery Officer aboard the USS Edsall earlier in the war,
resulting in him being declared "legally blind" (Church of Scientology v.
Armstrong, 21 May 1984; also "Ron - Letters and Journals", 1997). Yet
another alternative is that he had been left lame by shrapnel fragments in
hip and back ("Ron - Letters and Journals", 1997). He was taken to Oak
Knoll Naval Hospital in California where he was treated for injured optic
nerves and physical injuries to his hip and back. He was assessed as having
"no neurotic or psychotic tendencies of any kind whatsoever" (Hubbard, "My
Philosophy", 1965).
Hubbard's long and heroic service took him to all five theatres of World
War II, for which he was rewarded with 21 medals and palms ("Facts About L.
Ron Hubbard - Things You Should Know", 1974), or alternatively 27
decorations (Flag Operations Liaison Memo of May 28, 1974) or even 29 ("The
Church of Scientology: 40th Anniversary", 1994). By applying his own
revolutionary mental therapies, which later became the basis of
Scientology, he recovered so fully that he was reclassified for full combat
duty, to the amazement of the Naval authorities. He spent a full year in
Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in California and was fully recovered by 1947
("Research & Discovery Series" vol. 1, 1980). Alternatively, his final post
in the US Navy was as Provost Marshall in Korea in 1945 ("A Report to
Members of Parliament on Scientology", 1968).
Hubbard was not a man who enjoyed war and had seen enough killing to last
him a lifetime ("What Is Scientology?", 1992 ed.). He resigned his
commission rather than assist government research projects and instead
published, in 1948, his "original thesis" on his discoveries about the mind
(FSM magazine, vol. 1 no. 1, 1968).
--------------------------------------
Confused? The Church of Scientology certainly is. This improbable and
contradictory account was assembled from no less than twenty-six different
sources, twenty-four of which were published by the Church of Scientology
itself. Scientology's own websites present at least three different
versions of Hubbard's service career. 1
As this shows, Hubbard's followers have been chronically unable to present
a coherent picture of what exactly he did in the war. This is remarkable,
since every official account credits Hubbard's experiences in the war as
being the catalyst for the development of his "science of the mind".
Considering the fundamental importance of this period to Scientology's
origins, it is most peculiar that the organisation which Hubbard founded
has been unable to settle on a consistent account.
It is not clear whether Hubbard actually wrote all of these biographical
accounts - the only ones directly attributable to him are "The Story of
Dianetics & Scientology" lecture, "My Philosophy", his "Autobiographical
notes for Peter Tompkins" and the "Interview granted to the Australian
Press", plus also probably the accounts cited by Thomas Moulton in Church
of Scientology v. Armstrong, 21 May 1984 and Jack Williamson in Wonder's
Child. The latter two have never been disowned (indeed, Moulton was acting
as a witness for Scientology and the claims which he reported as having
been made by Hubbard have been reiterated in recent years by Scientology).
Although the Scientology books and publications quoted are in most cases
copyrighted to Hubbard, this was standard Scientology practice, even where
someone else was credited as the author.
There can, however, be little doubt that Hubbard approved most if not all
of them. All were published by the Church of Scientology. The draconian
penalties imposed for publishing unauthorised ("squirrel") material on
Scientology would have ensured that executives at the highest levels would
have had to approve their publication, probably clearing them via Hubbard
himself. He was certainly the original source of the information. There
was, quite simply, no other source - it was not until 1979 that the US Navy
released his service record to an outside agency (the Church itself). The
claim that he received 21 medals definitely came from him, as shown by a
letter sent on his behalf in May 1974. His private papers have yielded a US
Navy form which purports to show that he really did receive those medals.
As the compilation of accounts above shows, the Church of Scientology
(which effectively means Hubbard himself) was careless about consistency in
published biographical accounts. That did not really matter so long as
people could not access his service records, which the US Navy guarded
zealously from all enquirers. Without the benefit of those files, Scandal
of Scientology author Paulette Cooper, for instance, found herself writing
in 1971 that "he was severely injured in the war (and in fact was in a
lifeboat for many days, badly injuring his body and his eyes in the hot
Pacific sun)." She simply did not have any better information.
The passage of the Freedom of Information Act in 1973 (for which,
ironically, the Scientologists had campaigned) began to open the
floodgates. Although Hubbard's personnel record remained sealed to the
general public until his death in 1986, other documents - such as his
ships' log books and previously classified Action Reports - became publicly
available. An amateur researcher, Michael Shannon, had by 1979 amassed "a
mountain of material which included some files that no one else had
bothered to get copies of - for example, the log books of the Navy ships
that Hubbard had served on, and his father's Navy service file". Copies of
Shannon's documents reached official Scientology archivist Gerry Armstrong.
The rosy picture of Hubbard's heroic wartime service ultimately was
shattered in the US courts. Gerry Armstrong had by this time been declared
a "Suppressive Person" and was expelled from Scientology for his insistence
that Hubbard's life story had been grossly misrepresented over the years.
He took with him a large number of highly sensitive documents, including
material from Hubbard's Navy and Veterans' Administration files. He was
subsequently taken to court by Scientology in a case that came to trial in
May 1984. A keystone of Armstrong's defence was his contention that he was
right about the incorrectness Hubbard's of publicised life story. In
defence, Scientology put Hubbard's sometime second-in-command, former Lt.
Thomas Moulton, in the witness stand to testify on Hubbard's war years. The
subsequent cross-examination proved devastating for the Church of
Scientology, which lost the case. Moulton's testimony is reproduced in full
elsewhere in this website.
The death of Hubbard in January 1986 finally enabled the public release of
his service record. The Los Angeles Times apparently was the first to
obtain the full record, closely followed by British author Russell Miller,
who published a withering account of Hubbard's naval career in his 1987
book, Bare-Faced Messiah. Another British author, Jon Atack, published a
slightly expanded account in A Piece of Blue Sky (1992). This website aims
to be the definitive account, bringing together an online copy of the US
Navy and Veterans' Administration files plus a detailed analysis of
Hubbard's career, his subsequent claims, and related aspects.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Title is with apologies to Gitta Sereny.
1 See "L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle"
(http://www.lronhubbard.org/asi/chrono.htm); "Ron The Poet/Lyricist"
(http://www.ronthepoet.org/p_jpg/thewar1.htm); and biographical sketches
from "What Is Scientology?", 1992 edition
(http://www.aboutlronhubbard.org/eng/wis3_1r.htm).
--
| Chris Owen - chr...@lutefisk.demon.co.uk |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
>**********************************************************
>PLEASE DO NOT WEB THIS POST - A URL WILL BE POSTED SHORTLY
>COMMENTS WELCOMED!
>**********************************************************
>
> RON THE "WAR HERO"
> L. RON HUBBARD AND THE U.S. NAVY, 1941-50
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 2. L. Ron Hubbard:
> his struggle with truth *
>
> If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice.
>
> - The Joker, Batman: The Killing Joke (1989)
This is a wonderful approach. I salute you. And I've made a few small
comments below.
In 1974 a number of "Flag Missions," dubbed "Source Missions," were
fired to orgs around the world. This FDD and other Hubbard bio
materials were published at that time. The first missionaires were
briefed personally by Hubbard, and took with them various Hubbard
photos and other materials , including the famous color photo of
Hubbard's "21 medals and palms."
I was able to determine that some of the published biographical
sketches which were written about him as if by someone else were in
fact written by Hubbard himself because he had the originals,
including handwritten ones, in his archive. There is testimony on this
matter in the Scientology v. Armstrong trial transcript.
I didn't take the docs when I left. I had delivered them to Omar
Garrison while inside, as called for in Garrison's contract, and when
$cientology declared and attacked me I retrieved from Omar some of
what I had earlier given him. This was intensely litigated at trial
and detailed by Judge Breckenridge in his decision.
> He was
>subsequently taken to court by Scientology in a case that came to trial in
>May 1984.
April, through May, and into June actually.
> A keystone of Armstrong's defence was his contention that he was
>right about the incorrectness Hubbard's of publicised life story. In
>defence, Scientology put Hubbard's sometime second-in-command, former Lt.
>Thomas Moulton, in the witness stand to testify on Hubbard's war years. The
>subsequent cross-examination proved devastating for the Church of
>Scientology, which lost the case. Moulton's testimony is reproduced in full
>elsewhere in this website.
>
>The death of Hubbard in January 1986 finally enabled the public release of
>his service record. The Los Angeles Times apparently was the first to
>obtain the full record, closely followed by British author Russell Miller,
>who published a withering account of Hubbard's naval career in his 1987
>book, Bare-Faced Messiah. Another British author, Jon Atack, published a
>slightly expanded account in A Piece of Blue Sky (1992). This website aims
>to be the definitive account, bringing together an online copy of the US
>Navy and Veterans' Administration files plus a detailed analysis of
>Hubbard's career, his subsequent claims, and related aspects.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great work. Droll.
(c) Gerry Armstrong
extraordinarily, some of this is true :->
>He was
>ordered to the Philippines on the entry of the US into the war
he was to be sent there near the end of the war
> ("What Is
>Scientology?", 1978 edition). Alternatively, he was landed from the USS
>Edsall, on which he was the Gunnery Officer, on the north coast of Java
false. [.......]
>Another alternative states that during 1941-42 he served in Brisbane as a
>mail officer manning the only anti-aircraft battery in Australia ("An
>interview granted to the Australian Press on January 10th 1963 at Saint
>Hill Manor ... by L. Ron Hubbard"). His posting ended when he was relieved
>by fifteen officers of rank ("Mission into Time", 1973). As yet another
>alternative, in 1941 he rewrote the Hydrographic Office Publications for
>the US Navy (Hubbard, "Autobiographical notes for Peter Tompkins", 6 June
>1972).
He rewrote some charts for them making a "real but minor" contribution.
>
>Arriving back in the US in March 1942, the shortage of skilled officers was
>such that after a week in hospital he was ordered at once to the command of
>a North Atlantic corvette (Hubbard, "The Story of Dianetics & Scientology",
>taped lecture of 1958) which was the former British corvette, the Mist. He
[......]
>issue 63). Alternatively, he commanded the subchaser USS YP-422 (aka USS
>Mist)
True; and famously shelled a goat-inhabited(*) Mexican island.
[(*) goats is a likely supposition; the islands had no human
inhabitants but, at some later periods, feral goats on them].
>and turned its crew - to a man, all hardened criminals transferred
>from Portsmouth Naval Prison
Bwaaah !!!!!!!!
> - into the finest crew in the fleet
>
>In 1943, he was transferred to the North Pacific where he was made
>Commodore of Corvette Squadrons ("Facts About L. Ron Hubbard - Things You
>Should Know", Flag Divisional Directive 69RA of 8 March 1974, revised 7
>April 1974). He fought and sunk one or, alternatively, two enemy submarines
>off the Oregon coast in May 1943 ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle", 1990;
The Mist/YP422 fought an iron-ore deposit. And some goats.
>The following years, 1944-45, he worked as an instructor at the Small Craft
>Training Center in San Pedro, California ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle",
>1990).
was briefly trained at....
>He subsequently served as Navigation Officer aboard the USS
>Algol ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle", 1990).
Until he was slung off and shipped home as a ne'er-do-well.
>He later attended Princeton University as a post-graduate ("A Report to
>Members of Parliament on Scientology", 1968)
false
>or, alternatively, attended
>the US Navy's School of Government at Princeton as a student
true
>Hubbard ended the war (in 1944 or, alternatively, 1945)
[snip fictitious wounds] at
>Oak
>Knoll Naval Hospital in California
>
>Hubbard's long and heroic service took him to all five theatres of World
>War II, for which he was rewarded with 21 medals and palms
No medals of any merit.
>Hubbard was not a man who enjoyed war and had seen enough killing to last
>him a lifetime ("What Is Scientology?", 1992 ed.).
He never killed anything except time. They should
have called him Bungalow Bill.
> --------------------------------------
>
>Confused? The Church of Scientology certainly is.
Yep.
>
__ .\|/////..
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Nope.
>>In 1943, he was transferred to the North Pacific where he was made
>>Commodore of Corvette Squadrons ("Facts About L. Ron Hubbard - Things You
>>Should Know", Flag Divisional Directive 69RA of 8 March 1974, revised 7
>>April 1974). He fought and sunk one or, alternatively, two enemy submarines
>>off the Oregon coast in May 1943 ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle", 1990;
>
> The Mist/YP422 fought an iron-ore deposit. And some goats.
Nope.
>>The following years, 1944-45, he worked as an instructor at the Small Craft
>>Training Center in San Pedro, California ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle",
>>1990).
> was briefly trained at....
>
>>He subsequently served as Navigation Officer aboard the USS
>>Algol ("L. Ron Hubbard - A Chronicle", 1990).
>
> Until he was slung off and shipped home as a ne'er-do-well.
Nope.
> He never killed anything except time. They should
> have called him Bungalow Bill.
He did kill a lot of fish with his depth-charging, though. :-)
As for the other stuff, you'll just have to keep reading...
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