Karen#1
Well-known member
As on past Memorial Day holidays, we think it’s important to remind readers about Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s ‘stolen valor,’ because part of his legend were the tall tales he told about his experiences in the Second World War. Historian Chris Owen, a regular contributor here at the Bunker, took apart Hubbard’s war myths with his excellent 2019 book Ron the War Hero: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard’s Calamitous Military Career, an updated and rewritten version of his 1999 work. Today we’re reprinting an excerpt of Chris’s excellent book, looking at Hubbard’s claims about being injured in war versus the actual record. Also, please see Chris’s amazing investigation into Hubbard’s disastrous command in Australia that resulted in several deaths caused by his bungling, as well as a newer series about Hubbard’s bogus medals by a military veteran.
“Blinded with injured optic nerves, and lame with physical injuries to hip and back, at the end of World War II, I faced an almost non-existent future … I was abandoned by family and friends as a supposedly hopeless cripple and a probable burden upon them for the rest of my days. Yet I worked my way back to fitness and strength in less than two years, using only what I knew about Man and his relationship to the universe.” — L. Ron Hubbard
Hubbard was referring to the supposedly miraculous discoveries he made through Dianetics and Scientology. Perhaps not surprisingly, his claims evolved over time. His claim to have been ‘crippled and blinded’ was written in 1965, a full twenty years after the end of the war. It was not until as recently as 1997 – a full half-century after the war – that the Church of Scientology provided any specific details about how Hubbard sustained his supposed injuries, which were claimed to have been sustained in combat. In an account almost certainly written by official Hubbard biographer Dan Sherman, “the muzzle flash of a deck gun had left [Hubbard] legally blind, while shrapnel fragments in hip and back had left him all but lame.” Oddly, Sherman told Scientologists in the same year that Hubbard had taken slivers of shrapnel in the chest instead.
Hubbard’s medical records show that at the outset of the war in 1941, he suffered from poor eyesight – photographs from the time show him wearing glasses – but was otherwise healthy. By July 1942, he had developed conjunctivitis and his eyesight had deteriorated somewhat. He also had hemorrhoids and later suffered from urethral discharges, which are a classic symptom of venereal disease. Hubbard recorded in his private papers that he had caught gonorrhea from a “very loose” girl named Ginger, which forced him to take sulfa to treat the infection. He picked up further ailments in the following three years. In December 1945, he listed his various ailments in a letter supporting a claim for a pension and disability benefits. He listed a catalog of problems, none of which could be described as a combat-related injury (and indeed, during his naval service Hubbard never claimed to have suffered a combat injury):
Malaria, Feb 42, Recurrent;
Left Knee, Sprain, March 1942;
Conjunctivitis, Actinic Mar 42 (eyesight Failing)
Sporad. Pain Left side and back, undiagnosed, July 42;
Ulcer Duodenum, Chronic, Spring 43;
Arthritis, R[igh]t Hip, Shoulder, Jan 45.
This matches fairly well with his statement to Scientologists in 1958 that he “wasn’t sick, I was just banged up.” In an early 1960s interview he stated that he had spent “the last year of my naval career in a naval hospital. Not very ill, but I had a couple of holes in me – they wouldn’t heal. So they just kept me.” By 1992, however, this had been transformed in Scientology’s account to Hubbard being “a man physically shot to pieces at the end of the war”.
At no point in the war was Hubbard ever in combat with an enemy. His service aboard the USS YP-422, a former trawler converted into a harbor patrol vessel, lasted barely a month before he was relieved of command. it took him no further than the waters immediately off Boston Harbor. The most warlike activity committed by YP-422 under Hubbard’s guidance was a 27-hour series of training exercises, during which a few practice rounds were fired to test the gun. There was no suggestion of enemy action, nor any reports of injuries sustained by any of the crew.
Read more:
Memorial Day 2025: Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s bogus war injuries
As on past Memorial Day holidays, we think it’s important to remind readers about Scientology founder L.
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