SEA CAPTAIN

L. Ron Hubbard’s love of the sea began when he was very young. As he wrote: “When sixteen, I crossed the Pacific. And again. And then I crossed it twice more and I was not yet eighteen. I saw the Orient, went through it twice. Mexico and Canada I had seen when I was twelve — and Panama too. When I was twenty-one I had seen the Indies, the West Indies and knew them well.”

As helmsman and supercargo of a schooner, he plied the China coast; as director of the Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition, he cruised old pirate haunts from Bermuda to the Lesser Antilles and into the Caribbean; on corvettes and subchasers during World War II and in later years as the Commodore of a fleet, he continued his ever-pressing researches into the mind and life. No matter what route he took, he always passed his knowledge on to others.

Obtaining his Master of Steam and Motor Vessels license on 17 December 1940 from the US Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, and his Master of Sail Vessel license for “Any Ocean” on 29 March 1941, L. Ron Hubbard was commissioned as Lieutenant (jg) of the United States Navy Reserve on 2 July 1941. With the outbreak of World War II in December, he was afterward put in command first of a corvette in the Atlantic, and then of PC 815, a subchaser in the Pacific Northwest. In both theaters, Captain Hubbard continued to demonstrate his prowess of the sea by drilling his crews to a precision team that could meet any challenge efficiently and effectively.

His activities as a commanding officer are best summed by these words from a crew member’s letter of 7 July 1943: “It was indeed a blessing that I should have begun my life at sea on a ship under your command. I can well remember the first day at sea and the very poor showing I gave as a mariner. Then, unlike now, I was totally helpless, green and very disillusioned. However, barely four weeks after that date I find myself, and much to my surprise, developing sea legs. Without your guidance, patience and personality I’m sure I never would have achieved the foundation I now have. I’m not the only one on board who feels this way. As long as the ship remains afloat and anyone who served on her remains alive you will always be our ‘Captain.’”

In 1967, he captained ships in the Mediterranean, and continued to bill and drill his crews for what he described as a comfortable relationship with “Old Man Sea.” Aboard the 3,200 ton Royal Scotman, later rechristened the Apollo, he pursued his philosophical researches while training new crews into complete confidence and competence of seafaring ways.