Hubbard got busy accumulating a flotilla for his new exclusive sea-born unit. He bought an old North Sea fishing trawler, the Avon River, a former channel ferry, the Royal Scotsman, and a 60-foot ketch, the Enchanter, which Virginia Downsborough helped sail to Las Palmas. In March 1967, Yvonne Gillham and 18 other Scientologists were sent to the docks at Hull where the Avon River was moored. They worked long hours getting the vessel ship-shape for their trip to Las Palmas.
Just eight months after she had been reunited with her children, Yvonne Gillham was about to leave them again. At the time, Peter Jnr was 13, Terri 12, Janis 10. The former Brisbane kindergarten teacher told her children she was responding to a special invitation from Hubbard to join the Sea Project and that she would send for them soon.19
After a difficult journey made in rough weather with an inexperienced crew, the Avon River finally made it to Las Palmas in late May. Captain John Jones, one of only two professional seamen on board, described it as the strangest trip of his life:
My crew were sixteen men and four women Scientologists, who wouldn’t know a trawler from a tramcar. But they intended to sail this tub 4,000 miles in accordance with the Org Book. I was instructed not to use any electrical equipment apart from the lights, radio and direction finder. We had radar and other advanced equipment which I was not allowed to use. I was told it was all in the Org Book, which was to be obeyed without question.20
After the Avon River arrived in Las Palmas, Hubbard ordered a refit and his new elite unit got to work sanding, painting and building new bunks.21 At the time, Gillham was acting as Chief Steward of the vessel and personal steward to Hubbard. Gillham was a beautiful woman, with a personality to match. She was full of energy, enthusiasm and empathy and Hubbard found her irresistible.
On 12 August 1967, Hubbard issued Flag Order #1, officially establishing the Sea Organization, appointing himself the Commodore and making Yvonne Gillham the Commodore’s steward.22 Her duties included looking after Hubbard’s meals, clothes and quarters on the Avon River and reporting to Villa Estrella where Hubbard was based at Las Palmas.
Each day, Hana Eltringham would drive from the Avon River to Villa Estrella to deliver Hubbard’s mail and make any deliveries back to the ship. The South African was the officer on board responsible for the crew’s ethics and morals. On one trip to the villa she noticed Yvonne looked unhappy. ‘I took her aside and said what’s going on?’ says Eltringham. ‘And she burst into tears and said, “He’s trying to hit on me. I’m so scared I don’t know what to do.”’23
Hubbard told Gillham she was a loyal officer of Scientology, and the key person who prevented Xenu from turning everyone on Earth into a complete slave.24 As Hubbard made a move on his steward, he told her special people like them had to stick to together. Gillham tried to keep her distance from Hubbard and maintain her composure. When she rejected his advances, she was demoted.25
Yvonne Gillham was in an awkward situation. She desperately needed Hubbard onside if she was to be reunited with her family. ‘LRH (Hubbard) kept promising that us kids would be sent,’ says Janis Gillham, ‘because she did not agree to join the Sea Project unless she knew we’d be sent over.’26 Rejecting Hubbard’s advances did not help. It was nine months after Yvonne had left Saint Hill that arrangements were finally made to reunite the family. It was to be a false dawn. ‘We flew into Valencia where the ship was,’ recalls Peter Gillham Jnr. ‘We were told that my mother wasn’t there. She had sailed on the Avon River the day before. I realised then I’d just been shanghaied.’27
Peter Gillham Jnr is sure that Hubbard was behind the move that devastated the whole family. ‘He was like a puppet-master and he liked to play people and I got to see more and more of that later, but at that point what the heck do I know? I’m barely 15, I’m going to see my mother, families are meant to stay together, even Hubbard says that, he doesn’t practise that, but that’s what he says.’28
Around a month later, Peter Gillham Jnr was able to transfer to the Avon River and see more of his mother, but it was different for his sisters. They were stuck on the Royal Scotman, as it became known after a spelling mistake was made while registering it in Sierra Leone,29 ‘We didn’t see her but once in maybe three to four years after that – he made sure of it,’ says Terri Gillham. ‘It was like he was punishing her and making sure he could have us as his slaves with no control from parents.’30
The Gillham children joined the Sea Org, signing the standard one-billion-year contract. Janis was just 11 at the time. ‘I had no choice,’ she says. ‘I’m on a ship. I had no parents there and I’m told if I want to stay on the ship I had to sign. Where do I go if I say no?’31 Even though they were of school age the Gillham children were put to work full-time. If they were lucky they would get three hours a day of reading, writing and arithmetic to supplement their work schedule.32
Peter Gillham Jnr went to work in the engine room on the Avon River. Within six months he had been promoted to Chief Engineer at the age of just 15. His younger sisters were considered too young to be on the Avon River but not too young to be given senior positions on the Royal Scotman. When Hubbard issued orders, he wanted to know for sure that they were carried out. He set up the Commodore’s Messengers Organization (CMO) for this purpose. The first two messengers were his son Quentin and Janis Gillham.33 Soon after, Terri joined the CMO. Aged just 11 and 13, Janis and Terri would soon become two of the most powerful people in the Sea Org.
The messengers were the eyes, ears and mouthpieces of Hubbard. They were expected to deliver a message with the same words, the same emphasis and the same tone that Hubbard had relayed it to them. If this included abuse and strong language, so be it. Hubbard frequently blew his stack and the messengers had to channel this anger. Even though they were 11 and 13, Janis and Terri, like the other messengers, were to be called ‘Sir’ at all times, and treated with the utmost of respect by all members of the Sea Org. The messengers were placed on six-hour shifts, seven days a week.
Delivering messages was just one part of the job. They also had to light Hubbard’s cigarettes, carry an ashtray beside him, run his bath, swat flies, tell the captain which way to steer the ship, and even pull the Commodore’s trousers on. ‘He always wore these boxer shorts,’ recalls Terri Gillham in disgust. ‘Young girls should not be around that. He could have pulled his own trousers on. It’s just ridiculous.’34
As a Commodore’s Messenger, Terri Gillham was exposed to Hubbard’s sleazy side. ‘He tried to kiss me one time,’ she told me. ‘It was disgusting. I was 16 years old and up on the sun deck with him, Doreen was on watch with me and he had sent her off on a message; it was evening and getting dark. He had rotting teeth and such bad breath. Oh, God, he was disgusting. He was disgusting to look at and to touch and he thought he was God’s gift.’35
As they became more experienced, the messengers assumed more responsibility, eventually handling the management team, enforcing orders and making sure Hubbard’s programs were properly implemented.
Because they worked so closely with Hubbard, and were passing on his messages to various other Sea Org members, the messengers got a unique insight into Hubbard’s character and how he treated his followers. ‘He was bipolar!’ says Janis Gillham. ‘He could be so sweet and nice and friendly and very personable and sometimes he would just go into these tantrums and you’d just have to calm him down.’36
Terri Gillham concurs. ‘He was always angry, always yelling and screaming at people. It was always in the back of my mind – why is he so angry?’37 It’s a question Terri has pondered for most of her life. She feels part of his anger was driven by self-loathing and guilt from not being the man he claimed he was. ‘He knew he didn’t have the good intentions that he claimed he had. He knew we were all slaves to him, he knew he manipulated and controlled us.’38
These were not just random acts of anger. Hubbard had institutionalised a culture of control and punishment through what he ironically titled ‘ethics’. By the time th
e Sea Org was functioning, Hubbard was already using Scientology policy to control his followers. He had the power to declare someone a ‘Suppressive Person’ and force them to disconnect from a friend, colleague or family member.
Hubbard had pulled together a battalion of ‘Ethics Officers’ to report on and monitor the behaviour of his followers. If someone saw another person doing the wrong thing by Scientology they could write a report and send it to the Ethics Officer. Hubbard was building a system of spying and informing of which the East German Stasi would be proud.
Next he introduced ‘Ethics Conditions’, laying out formulas to measure the ethics of an individual or a group. He called these the ‘Conditions of Existence’ that included the states of ‘power’, and ‘affluence’ at the top and ‘liability’, ‘enemy’ and ‘treason’ towards the bottom. On 18 October 1967 Hubbard issued a list of penalties for those on ‘lower conditions’. Someone assigned the condition of ‘liability’ would have their pay suspended and have a dirty grey rag tied to their left arm. Anyone given the condition of ‘treason’ would have their pay halted and a black mark placed on their left cheek.39
Hubbard defined his ‘Conditions of Existence’ in terms of degrees of success or survival.40 ‘Ethics’ were the key to an individual’s ability to improve and for an organisation’s ability to survive and flourish. Hubbard’s concept of ethics did not match up with the traditional meaning of the word. ‘We are not in the business of being good boys and girls,’ he wrote in Introduction to Scientology Ethics. ‘We’re in the business of going free and getting organization products roaring.’41
Through his ‘Ethics’ policies Hubbard introduced an authoritarian regime of measuring and monitoring statistics. Each Thursday at 2 pm, Scientology staff had to turn in the weeks’ sales figures and achievements. Hubbard demanded that these statistics improve every week; otherwise lower ethics conditions were imposed. He had created an impossible regime of accelerating achievements where staff and Sea Org members had to work harder and harder each week or face punishment.
Terri Gillham, who saw the policies developed up close, says Hubbard constructed them to enslave his followers. ‘I think it’s all designed to teach you how to submit and give in and be monitored and be controlled. It’s all about controlling the person and getting them under submission and control.’42
According to Terri, Hubbard was smart enough to know how to control his followers, and smart enough to know better. ‘He was intelligent, he could read something and then duplicate it and understand it and take it and rewrite it in his own way. He was very clever as a writer – incredible at marketing, that’s how he boomed Scientology, he was a marketing genius.’43
In the early days of implementing his new policy, Hubbard decided a whole vessel was under the condition of ‘liability’. After an incident where the Royal Scotman had crashed into a dock, all the crew was forced to wear dirty rags. Even the ship’s funnel had a grey tarpaulin wrapped around it.44 While dirty rags and hard labour were humiliating, Hubbard was only just getting started.
At the front of a ship like the Avon River or the Royal Scotman is a narrow compartment called the chain locker. When the anchor is not in use, its chain is coiled up and stored there within the bow. In Hubbard’s mind, it was not just a place to store the anchor chain, but Sea Org members he considered to have low ‘ethics conditions’.
Hana Eltringham, a former captain of the Avon River, knew the chain locker well, describing it as ‘a closed metal container, it’s wet, it’s full of water and seaweed, it smells bad’.45 Terri Gillham cannot believe Hubbard used it to punish his followers. ‘That chain locker was evil,’ she says. ‘It was a hellhole. It was worse than prison. The chain locker was stinking, disgusting and dangerous. If the chain had been let out while someone was in there, they would’ve died.’46
Peter Gillham Jnr was given the condition of ‘enemy’ and sent to the chain locker for making a wisecrack about oil on the floor of the engine room on the Avon River.47 His father, who joined the Sea Org briefly in March 1968, and was in charge of the finances on the Royal Scotman, ended up in the chain locker after he was falsely accused of trying to steal money.48
Even small children were sent to the chain locker. Because Scientology treats children as if they are small adults, minors were not protected from the growing culture of punishment and abuse aboard the Apollo. As Hubbard wrote in Scientology and Your Children, ‘They are (and let’s not overlook the point) men and women. A child is not a special species of animal distinct from Man. A child is a man or a woman who has not attained full growth. Any law which applies to the behaviour of men and women applies to children.’49
Derek Greene, a four-year-old boy who had dropped a Sea Org member’s Rolex watch overboard, was sent to the chain locker for two days and two nights.50 The boy’s mother pleaded with Hubbard to let him out, but Scientology’s founder would not relent.51 Alone in the dark, with no blankets or potty, the four-year-old sobbed until his punishment was up.52
Tonja Burden, a former Sea Org member, swore in an affidavit she’d seen a boy held in the chain locker for 30 nights. ‘He was only allowed out to clean the bilges where the sewer and refuse of the ship collected,’ she said.53 Scientology’s ‘Pope’ John McMaster claimed Hubbard sent a deaf mute girl of around five years of age to the chain locker for ten days, assigning her an ‘ethics condition’ where she was meant to ‘find out who you really are’.54
When Terri Gillham had difficulties dealing with a naughty child on board the Apollo, Hubbard dreamed up a form of punishment you wouldn’t even inflict on an adult. ‘He said lock him in the cupboard overnight,’ she says. ‘I was 13 or 14 years old but I knew that’s not what you do. I knew I would never tell him that I wasn’t going to do it – I just didn’t do it. Because if I told him I’m not going to do it I’d be busted and he’d have somebody else do it so I figured the best thing to do was pretend I did it and not say anything further about it. I always looked back at this and thought there was something wrong with a man that would consider locking people up like this.’55
Even Hubbard’s special messengers were subjected to cruel punishments. When Janis Gillham finished last in the messengers’ Scientology dictionary exam, she had to spend 24 hours up the crow’s nest on the top of the ship’s mast. ‘I was 12,’ says Gillham. ‘It was a big metal mast. You climb up the ladder, which was pretty high, and then you climb into it and you can’t lay down, you’re sitting up there with your knees pulled to your chin for 24 hours.’ As the youngest messenger it was almost inevitable that Janis would finish last in the exam. Hubbard was punishing a small girl for not keeping up with older children.56
John McMaster was to experience firsthand the expanding punishment culture within Scientology’s elite unit. In May 1968, Hubbard started giving orders that Sea Org members be thrown overboard from the ship from a height of around six to seven metres.57 Hubbard did not consider his ‘Pope’ of Scientology to be infallible. McMaster was overboarded on six separate occasions, the last time breaking his shoulder as he hit the water. He left Scientology soon after and had lost all respect for Hubbard, referring to him in published interviews as ‘Fatty’.58
Victims of overboardings were fully clothed when thrown into the sea. Some had their hands and feet tied together, others were blindfolded.59 For those who couldn’t swim it was a terrifying experience. There was no mercy shown for older Sea Org members either. Julia Lewis Salmen was pushing 60 when Hubbard issued the order that she be tossed overboard. ‘She screamed all the way down,’ says Hana Eltringham.60 ‘Once she hit the water the screaming stopped. Nobody did anything. Finally Hubbard shouted down, “For God’s sake, what is she doing in the water?” He then told someone to jump in and save her.’61 One Sea Org member suffered the indignity of losing his toupee after he was thrown off the deck.62
Sea Org members could be overboarded for the most minor indiscretions. Peter Gillham Jnr was thrown overboard for turning up 15 minutes late
to a shift in the engine room.63 He was just 15 at the time, but being a strong swimmer, was not traumatised by the experience like some of the American and English Sea Org members. The British Sunday Times reported that children as young as eight or nine were being thrown overboard.64
It was the Sunday Times journalist Alex Mitchell who first broke the story of Scientology’s brutal overboarding rituals, and his exposé could be traced back to Australia and The Anderson Report. The Townsville-born journalist had already antagonised the Scientologists while writing about them for Sydney’s Daily Mirror. When Mitchell moved to London in 1967, he brought with him copies of The Anderson Report, and was happy to share them with other journalists.
Mitchell’s copies of this sought-after document soon made their way around the bars and newsrooms of Fleet Street. The report helped many British journalists write about Scientology. ‘Because the report had been tabled in parliament,’ says Mitchell, ‘its contents were “privileged” and could be used without fear of legal action by the vexatious litigants of Scientology. The report was widely used by UK newspapers during that time and provided a platform for most of the exposés.’65
After arriving in London, the Australian reporter decided to go undercover and sign up to the Church of Scientology in Tottenham Court Road. Mitchell must have been good at hoodwinking the E-Meter. Despite believing in none of Hubbard’s doctrine, he reached Operating Thetan Level I (OT I) before he put his newfound knowledge to work.66
The Sea Org dropped anchor on the Greek Island of Corfu in August of 1968.67 Hubbard was so enthused by the hospitality he’d received from the Greek military junta, he renamed the Royal Scotman the Apollo, and rechristened the Avon River the Athena. The British Home Office had asked its Vice-Counsel on Corfu, the formidable Major John Forte, to tell Hubbard he was no longer welcome in the UK.68 Alex Mitchell was sent to Corfu to investigate Hubbard’s plans on the island, which were said to include a proposal for a University of Scientology.69
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