Spotlight on Lee Falk - The WWII Years

Draft Card 1940

This article looks at the WW2 years and which period may contain possible ghosted Mandrake and The Phantom stories.

The WWII Years

Chief of Radio of the Foreign-Language Division

Office of Facts and Figures

In October 1941, Archibald MacLeish was appointed director of the OFF, an independent government information agency. To head the FLD within the OFF MacLeish chose Alan M. Cranston .

Cranston wanted Lee Falk to serve as associate chief and handling radio issues. In Cranston's letter inducing Falk to take the job, he explained that Falk would: compose radio scripts for use in foreign-language broadcast designed to provide information about the war, to boost morale, and to sell the war to the German, Italian, and other groups in this country.

Early 1942 Lee Falk started his work in Washington. He established a close collaboration with OFF Radio Division, attending their weekly radio conferences with committees of agencies, stations and networks. He also established collaboration with the Broadcasters Victory Council, setting up an exchange-of-program-ideas service. A new program "Uncle Sam Speaks" was scheduled for WOV in New York in Italian, later to be reproduced in German.

During the NAB Convention in Cleveland Lee Falk explained how enemy interests were attemting to capitalize on foreign tongue programs The broadcasters set up a temporary committee to set up a organization of self regulation, where all personnel should be clared through this committee.

His headquarter was set up in Washington and Arthur Simon was elected as the first chairman of FLBWC in June 1942, and a voluntary code for the 210 stationes was adopted. During their first meeting Lee Falk agreed to act as liaison between the committee and the various Governmental agencies identified with or interested in foreign language broadcasting, included the Office of Cencorship, Federal Bureau of Investigation, intelligence branche of the Army and Navy, and OFF.

Office of War Information

OWI: Chart of Organization

On June 13 1942 OWI was established as a federal agency, to conduct the government's wartime information and propaganda programs. It came into being by integrating several agencies — including the OFF, with the FLD as part of the Buerau of Special Operations, headed by Philip Hamblet.

From the viewpoint of the war effort employes were found to be undesirable and had lost their positions. FLBWC had asked Lee Falk if his office could help them finding out whetever a person or persons had a clean mind. As a precaution against re-hiring these undesirable employes Arthur Simon sent out a letter to all foreign-language stationes urging them to contact Lee Falk before hiring new personell.

A questionnairie from October 1942 showed that about 7% of the broadcast time was given to public service programs, almost all prepared by OWI. Like for Labor Day 1942 where Lee Falk recorded four transcriptions in Spanish, Polish, Italian and German. The 15-minute transcriptions, Free Labor Will Win, included speeches by many educational civic and labor leaders. In addition OWI recommended that the stations also arranged to have local labor leaders to follow the transcription to round out a half-hour program.

Late October 1942 the Goverment and industry plans for regulating foreign-language radio plans were explained at a FLRWCC meeting in Washington. The FLRWCC was to be the liaison between official and individual broadcasters. A three-way system of Governmental direction was reviewed:

• Office of Censorship will monitor programs and advise broadcasters of violations of the voluntary censorship code
• FCC will establish a new investigation unit to prepare reports on the background of employes of foreign-language stations
• OWI will intensify its creative programming activities

There was some kind of confusion about responsibility for the investigation of personnel. Theese investigations was carried out voluntarlily by the FLRWCC. Neighter FCC or the Office of Censorship had accepted the responsibility. But when FBI also refused to accepted this responsibility chairman Fly told that FCC would do the investigation themself with a new staff of 25 investigators.

Charles Olson described the FLD quartered in the Library of Congress Annex as a big, open office that was crowded, noisy, an bustling with activity as a city room of a large urban newspaper. He described his immediate superior, Lee Falk, as a witty, fast-talking Brodway writer-producer. Olson worked writing press releases and radio speeches on the draft and price controls, war bonds and gas rations.

By 1943 Congress made a varity of accusations against the OWI, as a political tool, and began its investigation. A more specific accusation involving the work of the Radio Section of the FLD and its head, Lee Falk. The inquiry, chaired by Edward E. Cox, claimed that in addition to the initiated moral- and unit-building foreign-language programs they also removed from the air broadcasters who were considered pro-fascist. The Cox Committee claimed that radio stationes were pressed to dismiss personnel by holding the treat of license suspension over their heads, attendent to force upon radiostations a pro-Russian or an arbitrary OWI slant, and that Falk used the division to secure publicity for himself and employment for his friends. The inquiry started in August (1943) and by the end of the month Lee Falk had quietly quit his job at OWI.

Private in the United States Army

In 1944 Fort Devens was a reception center for all New England men. Fort Devens trained nurses, chaplains, cooks and bakers as well as the troops of the 1st, 32nd and 45th Infantry Divisions and the Fourth Women’s Army Corps. In addition, a Prisoner of War Camp for German and Italian soldiers opened at Fort Devens in February 1944.

Lee Falk was enlisted with no branch assignment at Fort Devens (Massachusetts) on Mars 7, 1944. A week later he was presented at a Groton Rotary club meeting as an army private stationed at Fort Devens. Little is known about Lee Falk's service during WW2, but a service normaly started like this:

 After finishing the process of medical and psychological checks, classification testing, and initial military occupational specialty assignment at the reception center, the men found out where they were headed. They were divided into groups and led by an officer. For travel, an allotment of money was given, and the men set out all across the country to their assignments; one of the infantry replacement training centers (IRTCs) like Camp Wolters or Camp Wheeler; the infantry and field artillery replacement training center at Camp Roberts; the tank destroyer training and replacement center at Camp Hood; the armored force training and replacement center at Fort Knox. Once the men arrived at their new camp, they were quarantined for 72 hours and received a "short arm" (venereal disease) inspection.

In 1944 the average basic and individual training period was 17 weeks, followed by 11 weeks with small unit training and 11 weeks with combined arms training. Lee Falk himself said that he promptly was shipped from one end of the country to another. This sounds like a service at various infantry replacement training centers, which were located throughout the southern and southeastern United States.

Lee Falk also said that he 12 times was on the verge of going overseas, and 12 times the orders were cancelled and he was sent to some other post. Adding a 40 weeks training period and about 22 leave days to the enlistment date this had to be after mid February 1945.

Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom

1942-1943

Regarding the way of writing the scripts for Mandrake and the Phantom Phil Davis said in 1948 that Lee Falk did mail two or three months' supply at a time. In 1967, Lee Falk said he created a few weeks of script for both Mandrake and The Phantom at a time, spending eight to ten hours a week on this.

In Washington Lee Falk was one of several dollar-a-year men, and his income was from his newspaper strips. Even if Lee Falk probably worked long days in Washington he could, and had to continuing writing his script for Mandrake and The Phantom. Several scripts in this period are about the war theme and intelligence, inspired by his work at OFF/OWI. Some of the stories also refering to Washington like the Mandrake story "The Rumor Factory" and the Phantom story "Bent Beak Broder".

Timeline 1942-1943: Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom Stories

	1942																								1943
	Jan		Feb		Mar		Apr		May		Jun		Jul		Aug		Sep		Oct		Nov		Dec		Jan		Feb		Mar		Apr		May		Jun		Jul		Aug		Sep		Oct		Nov		Dec
MD	Lothar the Champ													The Rumor Factory				Baron Kord														The Witch of Kaloon												The Earthshaker
MS	The Hungry Isles									Pacifica													Mystery of the Girls with Red Hair								Cloud City																Gloria Golden
PD			The Inexorables																									Bent Beak Broder								The Phantom's Engagement				High Seas Highjacker
PS					The Impostor															Castle in the Clouds												The Ismani Cannibals					Hamid the Terrible
Lee Falk	Chief of Radio of the Foreign-Language Division OFF/OWI																																								writing

By the end of August 1943 Lee Falk had quit his job in Washington and back in New York he wrote the Passionate Congressman, inspired by his experiences in Washington's political environment.

He also worked feverishly plotting and writing an army-term-lenght supply of Mandrake and The Phantom. It seems that this task was difficult to complete and Lee Falk found that he needed help from a ghost writer. In an interview Alfred Bester confirmed that he had worked on both The Phantom and Mandrake during WWII with an anecdote:

I had one funny experience during that time that I was writing comics. I also ghosted Mandrake and The Phantom for Lee Falk. Lee and I got together and he was telling me how one of the Sunday pages from Mandrake sold at auction in Paris for three hundred dollars. I told him, when we moved into our brownstone at 68th Street, the old Stephen Vincent Benét house we managed to get, I papered one entire wall of my workshop with the silver prints from Green Lantern. And he said, "My God, they're worth a fortune today, do you still have them?" I said "No, when we moved out I just left'em behind; I just put'em up with carpet tacks." I had no idea then that there would be this tremendous nostalgia vogue for the old comics. Had I but known ..

In this anecdote Bester mentioned that he had moved out of the Stephen Vincent Benét house, where he had a wall of silver prints of Green Lantern. Stephen Vincent Benét died on March 13, 1943 and according to GCD Bester’s first Green Lantern story was in the shops fall 1943. This anecdote then could not have taken place before fall 1943, and about this time Lee Falk feverishly plotting and writing an army-term-lenght supply of Mandrake and The Phantom.

1944-1945

The reason for writing an army-term-lenght supply of Mandrake and The Phantom was that at the barracks a soldier had almost no personal space, only a bunk, a foot locker, and maybe a shelf for a few photographs. A typical daily schedule in the army started 06:30 with first call and back to barracks at 17:45, then followed supper at 18:45 and lights out and taps at 22:00. To write the scripts for Mandrake and The Phantom Lee Falk needed about eight to ten hours a week. As a soldier the week days gave little time for writing. On Sundays it could be possible, but most likely, he did not have a typewriter he could use.

A soldier did earn days of leave (about 2 1/2 days a month) and most likely Lee Falk had longer leaves after the various training periods. About 9 days in the end of August 1944, a week in mid November 1944 and a week early February 1945. During his longer leaves it is possible that he managed to write supplies with scripts to Phil Davis and Wilson McCoy.

The demobilization of the armed forces began with the defeat of Germany in May 1945 and continued through 1946. It is unknown if Lee Falk was released from the army late 1945, or shortly after May. His name is mentioned with some of the plays at the Cambridge Summer Theatre in Juni/July, but not all of them. In July he also met his future wife, Constance Moorehead, who acted at the theatre.

Timeline 1944-1945: Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom Stories

	1944																								1945
	Jan		Feb		Mar		Apr		May		Jun		Jul		Aug		Sep		Oct		Nov		Dec		Jan		Feb		Mar		Apr		May		Jun		Jul		Aug		Sep		Oct		Nov		Dec
MD			The Dome									Doctor Congo								The Mirror People				The Ice Lady							The Old Ones						The Mysterious Prince							The Sleeping Beauty
MS			The Garden of Wuzzu							The Circus Adventure							The Santa Claus Pirates						Fountain of Youth							Kingdom of the Wind							The Atalan Deep									The Twins of Karana
PD					Diana					The Crooner							The Maharajah's Daughter														The Blue Gang					Lago the Lake God					The Wild Girl					The Mermaids of Melo Straits
PS	Hamid the Terrible												The Childhood of the Phantom													The Golden Princess											The Strange Fisherman
Lee Falk	writing				Fort Devens and other Army Training Camps																														??

A characteristic in Lee Falk's script is that a new story often started at the same scene where the previous story ended and with a reference to the last story in the beginning. Another characteristic that can be found in Lee Falk's stories is that he often used small elements from his own life in the stories. Such as the use of names for characters and stories.

Small changes in the stories when the scene changes indicate that there may be a time difference in the writing process of a script. Sometimes a character turn up with a new name, or a character disappears suddenly and without explanation.

Mandrake dailies

The Mandrake dailies in 1943 alle have these characteristic between the stories and the story and real life references:

• "The Dome": The first strip refering to the previous story. The Dome's hide-out, Willow Island, the real place just 60 miles north of Manhattan?
• "Doctor Congo": Inspired by the character "Congo Witch Doctor" from the play "The Emperor Jones" staged at the Cambridge Summer Theatre on 1943.
• "The Mirror People": The beginning refering to the party and the witch-doctor in the previous story.

While the dailies from 1944: "The Ice Lady", "The Old Ones", The Mysterious Prince" and "The Sleeping Beauty" seem to have been written independently of each other. They all have a new scene in the beginning that does not follow the end of the previous story.

Mandrake Sundays

There is no connection between the end of "Gloria Golden" and the beginning of "The Garden of Wuzzu". The last story has a character named Jorga, a name used first time in the "Land of the Fakirs" (ms 1935). Then the first strip of "The Circus Adventure" refering to the previous story.

Then the scene changes between "The Circus Adventure" and "The Santa Claus Pirates", without connection between the stories. In "The Santa Claus Pirates" Princess Narda suddenly appears for the first time in the Sunday strips and boards the S.S. Raven on a scientific cruise, together with Mandrake and Lothar. In contrast to the story of the flame pearls, this expedition does not seem to have a specific purpose. In the following story "Fountain of Youth" they go ashore in the Florida Everglades.

Then in the "Kingdom of the Wind" Mandrake meets his old friend from the flaming pearls cruice and the "Pacifica" story. He boards the ship - now named Argus (previous Argos), and his old friend is named Blaine (previous Barton). In the following stories, "The Atalan Deep" and "The Twins of Karana", they still are on board the S.S. Argus.

Phantom dailies

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