Hell's Legionnaire Read online

  Upon his return to the United States and a hasty completion of his interrupted high school education, the young Ron Hubbard entered George Washington University. There, as fans of his aerial adventures may have heard, he earned his wings as a pioneering barnstormer at the dawn of American aviation. He also earned a place in free-flight record books for the longest sustained flight above Chicago. Moreover, as a roving reporter for Sportsman Pilot (featuring his first professionally penned articles), he further helped inspire a generation of pilots who would take America to world airpower.

  L. Ron Hubbard, left, at Congressional Airport, Washington, DC, 1931, with members of George Washington University flying club.

  Immediately beyond his sophomore year, Ron embarked on the first of his famed ethnological expeditions, initially to then untrammeled Caribbean shores (descriptions of which would later fill a whole series of West Indies mystery-thrillers). That the Puerto Rican interior would also figure into the future of Ron Hubbard stories was likewise no accident. For in addition to cultural studies of the island, a 1932–33 LRH expedition is rightly remembered as conducting the first complete mineralogical survey of a Puerto Rico under United States jurisdiction.

  There was many another adventure along this vein: As a lifetime member of the famed Explorers Club, L.RonHubbard charted North Pacific waters with the first shipboard radio direction finder, and so pioneered a long-range navigation system universally employed until the late twentieth century. While not to put too fine an edge on it, he also held a rare Master Mariner’s license to pilot any vessel, of any tonnage in any ocean.

  Capt. L. Ron Hubbard in Ketchikan, Alaska, 1940, on his Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition, the first of three voyages conducted under the Explorers Club Flag.

  Yet lest we stray too far afield, there is an LRH note at this juncture in his saga, and it reads in part:

  “I started out writing for the pulps, writing the best I knew, writing for every mag on the stands, slanting as well as I could.”

  To which one might add: His earliest submissions date from the summer of 1934, and included tales drawn from true-to-life Asian adventures, with characters roughly modeled on British/American intelligence operatives he had known in Shanghai. His early Westerns were similarly peppered with details drawn from personal experience. Although therein lay a first hard lesson from the often cruel world of the pulps. His first Westerns were soundly rejected as lacking the authenticity of a Max Brand yarn (aparticularly frustrating comment given L.RonHubbard’s Westerns came straight from his Montana homeland, while Max Brand was a mediocre New York poet named Frederick Schiller Faust, who turned out implausible six-shooter tales from the terrace of an Italian villa).

  Nevertheless, and needless to say, L.RonHubbard persevered and soon earned a reputation as among the most publishable names in pulp fiction, with a ninety percent placement rate of first-draft manuscripts. He was also among the most prolific, averaging between seventy and a hundred thousand words a month. Hence the rumors that L.RonHubbard had redesigned a typewriter for faster keyboard action and pounded out manuscripts on a continuous roll of butcher paper to save the precious seconds it took to insert a single sheet of paper into manual typewriters of the day.

  L. Ron Hubbard, circa 1930, at the outset of a literary career that would span half a century.

  That all L. Ron Hubbard stories did not run beneath said byline is yet another aspect of pulp fiction lore. That is, as publishers periodically rejected manuscripts from top-drawer authors if only to avoid paying top dollar, L. Ron Hubbard and company just as frequently replied with submissions under various pseudonyms. In Ron’s case, the list included: Rene Lafayette, Captain Charles Gordon, Lt. Scott Morgan and the notorious Kurt von Rachen—supposedly on the lam for a murder rap, while hammering out two-fisted prose in Argentina. The point: While L.Ron Hubbard as Ken Martin spun stories of Southeast Asian intrigue, LRH as Barry Randolph authored tales of romance on the Western range—which, stretching between a dozen genres is how he came to stand among the two hundred elite authors providing close to a million tales through the glory days of American Pulp Fiction.

  A Man of Many Names

  Between 1934 and 1950, L. Ron Hubbard authored more than fifteen million words of fiction in more than two hundred classic publications.

  To supply his fans and editors with stories across an array of genres and pulp titles, he adopted fifteen pseudonyms in addition to his already renowned L. Ron Hubbard byline.

  ______

  Winchester Remington Colt

  Lt. Jonathan Daly

  Capt. Charles Gordon

  Capt. L. Ron Hubbard

  Bernard Hubbel

  Michael Keith

  Rene Lafayette

  Legionnaire 148

  Legionnaire 14830

  Ken Martin

  Scott Morgan

  Lt. Scott Morgan

  Kurt von Rachen

  Barry Randolph

  Capt. Humbert Reynolds

  In evidence of exactly that, by 1936 L. Ron Hubbard was literally leading pulp fiction’s elite as president of New York’s American Fiction Guild. Members included a veritable pulp hall of fame: Lester “Doc Savage” Dent, Walter “The Shadow” Gibson, and the legendary Dashiell Hammett—to cite but a few.

  Also in evidence of just where L.Ron Hubbard stood within his first two years on the American pulp circuit: By the spring of 1937, he was ensconced in Hollywood, adopting a Caribbean thriller for Columbia Pictures, remembered today as The Secret of Treasure Island. Comprising fifteen thirty-minute episodes, the L. Ron Hubbard screenplay led to the most profitable matinée serial in Hollywood history. In accord with Hollywood culture, he was thereafter continually called upon to rewrite/doctor scripts—most famously for long-time friend and fellow adventurer Clark Gable.

  The 1937 Secret of Treasure Island, a fifteen-episode serial adapted for the screen by L. Ron Hubbard from his novel, Murder at Pirate Castle.

  In the interim—and herein lies another distinctive chapter of the L.Ron Hubbard story—he continually worked to open Pulp Kingdom gates to up-and-coming authors. Or, for that matter, anyone who wished to write. It was a fairly unconventional stance, as markets were already thin and competition razor sharp. But the fact remains, it was an L.RonHubbard hallmark that he vehemently lobbied on behalf of young authors—regularly supplying instructional articles to trade journals, guest-lecturing to short story classes at George Washington University and Harvard, and even founding his own creative writing competition. It was established in 1940, dubbed the Golden Pen, and guaranteed winners both New York representation and publication in Argosy.

  But it was John W. Campbell Jr.’s Astounding Science Fiction that finally proved the most memorable LRH vehicle. While every fan of L.RonHubbard’s galactic epics undoubtedly knows the story, it nonetheless bears repeating: By late 1938, the pulp publishing magnate of Street & Smith was determined to revamp Astounding Science Fiction for broader readership. In particular, senior editorial director F. Orlin Tremaine called for stories with a stronger humanelement. When acting editor John W. Campbell balked, preferring his spaceship-driven tales, Tremaine enlisted Hubbard. Hubbard, in turn, replied with the genre’s first truly character-driven works, wherein heroes are pitted not against bug-eyed monsters but the mystery and majesty of deep space itself—and thus was launched the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

  The names alone are enough to quicken the pulse of any science fiction aficionado, including LRH friend and protégé, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, A. E. van Vogt and Ray Bradbury. Moreover, when coupled with LRH stories of fantasy, we further come to what’s rightly been described as the foundation of every modern tale of horror: L.RonHubbard’s immortal Fear. It was rightly proclaimed by Stephen King as one of the very few works togenuinely warrant that overworked term “classic”—as in: “This is a class
ic tale of creeping, surreal menace and horror....This is one of the really, really good ones.”

  L. Ron Hubbard, 1948, among fellow science fiction luminaries at the World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto.

  To accommodate the greater body of L. Ron Hubbard fantasies, Street & Smith inaugurated Unknown—a classic pulp if there ever was one, and wherein readers were soon thrilling to the likes of Typewriter in the Sky and Slaves of Sleep of which Frederik Pohl would declare: “There are bits and pieces from Ron’s work that became part of the language in ways that very few other writers managed.”

  And, indeed, at J. W. Campbell Jr.’s insistence, Ron was regularly drawing on themes from the Arabian Nights and so introducing readers to a world of genies, jinn, Aladdin and Sinbad—all of which, of course, continue to float through cultural mythology to this day.

  At least as influential in terms of post-apocalypse stories was L. Ron Hubbard’s 1940 Final Blackout. Generally acclaimed as the finest anti-war novel of the decade and among the ten best works of the genre ever authored—here, too, was a tale that would live on in ways few other writers imagined. Hence, the later Robert Heinlein verdict: “Final Blackout is as perfect a piece of science fiction as has ever been written.”

  Like many another who both lived and wrote American pulp adventure, the war proved a tragic end to Ron’s sojourn in the pulps. He served with distinction in four theaters and was highly decorated for commanding corvettes in the North Pacific. He was also grievously wounded in combat, lost many a close friend and colleague and thus resolved to say farewell to pulp fiction and devote himself to what it had supported these many years—namely, his serious research.

  Portland, Oregon, 1943; L. Ron Hubbard, captain of the US Navy subchaser PC 815.

  But in no way was the LRH literary saga at an end, for as he wrote some thirty years later, in 1980:

  “Recently there came a period when I had little to do. This was novel in a life so crammed with busy years, and I decided to amuse myself by writing a novel that was pure science fiction.”

  That work was Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000. It was an immediate New York Times bestseller and, in fact, the first international science fiction blockbuster in decades. It was not, however, L.RonHubbard’s magnum opus, as that distinction is generally reserved for his next and final work: The 1.2 million word MissionEarth.

  How he managed those 1.2 million words in just over twelve months is yet another piece of the L. Ron Hubbard legend. But the fact remains, he did indeed author a ten-volume dekalogy that lives in publishing history for the fact that each and every volume of the series was also a New York Times bestseller.

  Moreover, as subsequent generations discovered L.RonHubbard through republished works and novelizations of his screenplays, the mere fact of his name on a cover signaled an international bestseller....Until, to date, sales of his works exceed hundreds of millions, and he otherwise remains among the most enduring and widely read authors in literary history. Although as a final word on the tales of L.Ron Hubbard, perhaps it’s enough to simply reiterate what editors told readers in the glory days of American PulpFiction:

  He writes the way he does, brothers, because he’s been there, seen it and done it!

  For more information about the life and works of L. Ron Hubbard,

  go to www.lronhubbard.org.

  The Stories from the

  Golden Age

  Your ticket to adventure starts here with the Stories from the Golden Age collection by master storyteller L. Ron Hubbard. These gripping tales are set in a kaleidoscope of exotic locales and brim with fascinating characters, including some of the most vile villains, dangerous dames and brazen heroes you’ll ever get to meet.

  The entire collection of over one hundred and fifty stories is being released in a series of eighty books and audiobooks. For an up-to-date listing of available titles, go to www.goldenagestories.com.

  AIR ADVENTURE

  Arctic Wings

  The Battling Pilot

  Boomerang Bomber

  The Crate Killer

  The Dive Bomber

  Forbidden Gold

  Hurtling Wings

  The Lieutenant Takes the Sky

  Man-Killers of the Air

  On Blazing Wings

  Red Death Over China

  Sabotage in the Sky

  Sky Birds Dare!

  The Sky-Crasher

  Trouble on His Wings

  Wings Over Ethiopia

  FAR-FLUNG ADVENTURE

  The Adventure of “X”

  All Frontiers Are Jealous

  The Barbarians

  The Black Sultan

  Black Towers to Danger

  The Bold Dare All

  Buckley Plays a Hunch

  The Cossack

  Destiny’s Drum

  Escape for Three

  Fifty-Fifty O’Brien

  The Headhunters

  Hell’s Legionnaire

  He Walked to War

  Hostage to Death

  Hurricane

  The Iron Duke

  Machine Gun 21,000

  Medals for Mahoney

  Price of a Hat

  Red Sand

  The Sky Devil

  The Small Boss of Nunaloha

  The Squad That Never Came Back

  Starch and Stripes

  Tomb of the Ten Thousand Dead

  Trick Soldier

  While Bugles Blow!

  Yukon Madness

  SEA ADVENTURE

  Cargo of Coffins

  The Drowned City

  False Cargo

  Grounded

  Loot of the Shanung

  Mister Tidwell, Gunner

  The Phantom Patrol

  Sea Fangs

  Submarine

  Twenty Fathoms Down

  Under the Black Ensign

  TALES FROM THE ORIENT

  The Devil—With Wings

  The Falcon Killer

  Five Mex for a Million

  Golden Hell

  The Green God

  Hurricane’s Roar

  Inky Odds

  Orders Is Orders

  Pearl Pirate

  The Red Dragon

  Spy Killer

  Tah

  The Trail of the Red Diamonds

  Wind-Gone-Mad

  Yellow Loot

  MYSTERY

  The Blow Torch Murder

  Brass Keys to Murder

  Calling Squad Cars!

  The Carnival of Death

  The Chee-Chalker

  Dead Men Kill

  The Death Flyer

  Flame City

  The Grease Spot

  Killer Ape

  Killer’s Law

  The Mad Dog Murder

  Mouthpiece

  Murder Afloat

  The Slickers

  They Killed Him Dead

  FANTASY

  Borrowed Glory

  The Crossroads

  Danger in the Dark

  The Devil’s Rescue

  He Didn’t Like Cats

  If I Were You

  The Last Drop

  The Room

  The Tramp

  SCIENCE FICTION

  The Automagic Horse

  Battle of Wizards

  Battling Bolto

  The Beast

  Beyond All Weapons

  A Can of Vacuum

  The Conroy Diary

  The Dangerous Dimension

  Final Enemy

  The Great S
ecret

  Greed

  The Invaders

  A Matter of Matter

  The Obsolete Weapon

  One Was Stubborn

  The Planet Makers

  The Professor Was a Thief

  The Slaver

  Space Can

  Strain

  Tough Old Man

  240,000 Miles Straight Up

  When Shadows Fall

  WESTERN

  The Baron of Coyote River

  Blood on His Spurs

  Boss of the Lazy B

  Branded Outlaw

  Cattle King for a Day

  Come and Get It

  Death Waits at Sundown

  Devil’s Manhunt

  The Ghost Town Gun-Ghost

  Gun Boss of Tumbleweed

  Gunman!

  Gunman’s Tally

  The Gunner from Gehenna

  Hoss Tamer

  Johnny, the Town Tamer

  King of the Gunmen

  The Magic Quirt

  Man for Breakfast

  The No-Gun Gunhawk

  The No-Gun Man

  The Ranch That No One Would Buy

  Reign of the Gila Monster

  Ride ’Em, Cowboy

  Ruin at Rio Piedras

  Shadows from Boot Hill

  Silent Pards

  Six-Gun Caballero

  Stacked Bullets

  Stranger in Town

  Tinhorn’s Daughter

  The Toughest Ranger

  Under the Diehard Brand

  Vengeance Is Mine!

  When Gilhooly Was in Flower

  Your Next Ticket to Adventure