Military Career of L. Ron Hubbard - Documenting Hubbard's Military Career

Documenting Hubbard's Military Career

Hubbard's military career has attracted comment from a number of (non-Scientologist) journalists and writers over the years. The claims made by the Church of Scientology were not challenged by some early writers; C.H. Rolph quoted without comment a 1968 Scientology biographical sketch circulated to British Members of Parliament in which Hubbard's war service was summarized, and in 1971 Paulette Cooper described as "true" the claim that Hubbard "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)." Others were more skeptical. George Malko attempted to verify Hubbard's "revealing, anonymously authored, and totally unsubstantiated biography" in 1970 but reported that "I was unable to confirm a single one of critical claims: that he had been crippled and blind, the nature of his 'discoveries,' and the medical records stating he had 'twice been pronounced dead.'" His inquiries were frustrated by the Navy's refusal to provide Hubbard's service record "without the written consent of the person whose records are concerned."

Information later released by the Navy and the Veterans Administration prompted some to express doubts. Christopher Evans commented in 1974 that "faced with this impressive, if annoyingly undetailed, record it is hard to assess the nature or extent of Hubbard's battle scars in the service of his country" but noted contradictions between claims of war wounds and the official record. In 1978, the Los Angeles Times described Hubbard's war record as "obscure" and quoted Navy spokesmen stating that Hubbard had not received a Purple Heart and had not been treated for any injuries sustained during his military career, contrary to the statements of the Church of Scientology.

By 1979, an amateur researcher, Michael Shannon, had gathered "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." Although Shannon was unable to find a publisher, he sent a hundred-page portfolio of materials, including copies of some of Hubbard's naval and college records, to a number of "concerned individuals". His work also found its way to the Church of Scientology's archivist, Gerry Armstrong, who was undertaking a project to research an official authorized biography of L. Ron Hubbard. According to Jon Atack, "the archive largely confirmed Shannon's material. Armstrong and Shannon reached the same eventual destination from opposed starting points." In October 1980, Omar Garrison, a writer who had previously written two books favorable to Scientology, was hired by the Church to write Hubbard's biography based on the materials that Armstrong had collected.

Armstrong became disillusioned and left Scientology at the start of 1982. He was declared a "Suppressive Person" (an enemy of Scientology) by the Church. With Garrison's permission, Armstrong made copies of around 100,000 pages from the Hubbard archive and deposited them with attorneys for safe keeping. The Church responded by suing Armstrong for breach of confidence, theft and invasion of privacy. The suit went to trial in a California court in 1984 as Church of Scientology of California vs. Gerald Armstrong. Hubbard's military career was a major focus of the case. Armstrong stated that he had "amassed approximately two thousand pages of documentation concerning Hubbard's wartime career: what he was doing what vessels he was on, fitness reports and medical and VA disability records. The truth is far different from the public representations." Garrison, who had by that time agreed to a settlement with the Church under which his manuscript would never be made public, told the court:

The inconsistencies were implicit in various documents which Mr. Armstrong provided me with respect to Mr. Hubbard's curriculum vitae, with respect to his Navy career, with respect to almost every aspect of his life. These undeniable and documented facts did not coincide with the official published biography that the church had promulgated.

During the trial's four weeks of testimony, the court heard evidence from Thomas S. Moulton, Hubbard's second-in-command aboard the USS PC-815. Moulton testified that Hubbard had told him that he had been involved in the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 and that he had been the only survivor of his destroyer, which had gone down with all hands save himself. The "submarine battle" of May 1943 was also described by Moulton and was hailed by a Church of Scientology attorney as "a new untold chapter to the history of the Pacific conflict during World War II; and new perspectives on the magnitude – and proximity – of Japanese naval operations off the U.S. coast during the war." Moulton also testified that Hubbard had told him that he had received combat injuries to his eyes and back. In response, documents contradicting Moulton's (and Hubbard's) account were read into the record by Armstrong's attorney, Michael Flynn.

The decision, by Judge Paul Breckenridge, found that Armstrong's fears of persecution by the Church were reasonable, and thus his conduct in turning over the documents in his possession to his attorneys was also reasonable. The judge issued a wide-ranging verdict, commenting of Hubbard that "the evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements." A few weeks later, a British judge ruled in a case heard at the Royal Courts of Justice that Hubbard had made a number of "false claims" about his military career: "That he was a much decorated war hero. He was not. That he commanded a corvette squadron. He did not. That he was awarded the Purple Heart, a gallantry decoration for those wounded in action. He was not wounded and was not decorated. That he was crippled and blinded in the war and cured himself with Dianetics techniques. He was not crippled and was not blinded." The judge, Mr. Justice Latey, noted: "There is no dispute about any of this. The evidence is unchallenged."

Hubbard's military service has subsequently been covered in detail by the British writers Russell Miller (Bare-Faced Messiah, 1987) and Jon Atack (A Piece of Blue Sky, 1990), by the Los Angeles Times in a six-part special report on Scientology published in June 1990, and more briefly by The New Yorker in February 2011. The accuracy of Miller's account has itself been questioned; Marco Frenschkowski, writing in 1999, commented that Miller's book had "definitely exposed some inflated statements about Hubbard's early achievements" but had also been partly disproved by the Church of Scientology, though he did not state which elements had been disproved.