HADLEY
PUBLISHING CO.
PROVIDENCE, R.I.
COPYRIGHT BY STREET & SMITH PUBLICATIONS
1940
COPYRIGHT 1948 BY L. RON HUBBARD
HALLADAY INC.
EAST PROVIDENCE 14, R.I.
DEDICATION
To the Men and Officers with Whom I
Served in World War II, First Phase,
1941-1945.
PREFACE
When FINAL BLACKOUT was written there was still a Maginot Line, Dunkirkwas just another French coastal town and the Battle of Britain, theBulge, Saipan, Iwo, V2s and Nagasaki were things unknown and far aheadin history. While it concerns these things, its action will not takeplace for many years yet to come and it is, therefore, still a story ofthe future though some of the "future" it embraced (about one fifth)has already transpired.
When published in magazine form before the war it created a littleskirmish of its own and, I am told, as time has gone by and someof it has unreeled, interest in it has if anything increased. Sofar its career has been most adventurous as a story. The "battle ofFINAL BLACKOUT" has included loud wails from the Communists—who saidit was pro-fascist (while at least one fascist has held it to bepro-Communist). Its premises have been called wild and unfounded on theone hand while poems (some of them very good) have been written aboutor dedicated to the Lieutenant. Meetings have been held to nominate itto greatness while others have been called to hang the author in effigy(and it is a matter of record that the last at least was successfullyaccomplished).
The British would not hear of its being published there at the time itappeared in America, though Boston, I am told, remained neutral—forthere is nothing but innocent slaughter in it and no sign of rape.
There are those who insist that it is all very bad and those who claimfor it the status of immortality. And while it probably is not theworst tale ever written, I cannot bring myself to believe that FINALBLACKOUT, as so many polls and such insist, is one of the ten greateststories ever published.
Back in those mild days when Pearl Harbor was a place you toured whilevacationing at Waikiki and when every drawing room had its business manwho wondered disinterestedly whether or not it was not possible todo business with Hitler, the anti-FINAL BLACKOUTISTS (many of whom, Ifear, were Communists) were particularly irked by some of the premisesof the tale.
Russia was, obviously, a peace-loving nation with no more thought thanAmerica of entering the war. England was a fine going concern without athought, beyond a contemptuous aside, for the Socialist who, of course,could never come to power. One must understand this to see why FINALBLACKOUT slashed about and wounded people.
True enough, some of its premises were far off the mark. It supposed,for instance, that the politicians of the great countries, particularlythe United States, would push rather than hinder the entrance of thewhole world into the war. In fact, it supposed, for its author was veryyoung, that politicians were entirely incompetent and would not preventfor one instant the bloodiest conflict the country had ever known.
Further, for the author was no critic, it supposed that the generalstaffs of most great nations were composed of stupid bunglers who wouldbe looking up their friends on the selection board when they shouldbe looking to their posts and that the general world wide strategyof war would go off in a manner utterly unadroit to the sacrifice ofefficiency. It surmised that if general staffs went right on bunglingalong, military organization would cease to exist, and it further—andmore to the point—advance