Operator No. 5
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Operator No. 5 was a pulp hero that appeared in his own ten cent pulp magazine, Secret Service Operator#5, which was published by Popular Publications between 1934 and 1939.
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[edit] Characters
In the magazines America was still deep in the Great Depression and Jimmy Christopher was a secret agent, codename "Operator No. 5" for the United States Intelligence in a series of fast paced stories about America's enemies who pledged war, death and bloody destruction in their efforts to take over America. The enemies were many, but often from countries with fictional names.
Christopher had two trademarks: a skull ring and a rapier which was kept curled inside his belt. He was aided by a number of people in the various wars: girlfriend Diane Elliot; Tim Donovan who quickly grew from a youngster to a two fisted young man; Nan Christopher his twin sister; John Christopher his father who was a retired operative known as Q-6; Chief of Intelligence Z-7; and friend "Slips" McGuire, among many others, some who gave their lives for America.
[edit] Writers and plotlines
The magazine ran for 48 issues, from April 1934 to November 1939. One final story was written but never published. Stories were credited to "Curtis Steele", which was a house name for writers Frederick Davis (#1-20), Emile C. Tepperman (#21-39), and Wayne Rogers (#40-48). Like other such pulps of the day, there were short backup stories by other authors.
Tepperman was responsible for the 13 interconnected novels (starting with #26) that make up The Purple Invasion, a series in which the Purple Empire (an unnamed European power which is a thinly veiled Germany) conquers the United States after conquering the rest of the world. Jimmy Christopher led the insurgency against them. The saga is often looked upon as the War and Peace of pulps. The entire Purple Invasion sequence was reprinted in the 1990s by Pulp Review/High Adventure.
In a rare bit of continuity for the pulp magazines, America did not find itself fully recovered in the first novel following the end of the Purple Invasion. Instead, America was still reeling from the bloody war, and found itself vulnerable to yet other would-be conquerors. A new serial dealt with the invasion of the US by an oriental power, obviously Japan, led by the "Yellow Vulture." This sequence started with issue #45, but was left unfinished with the magazine's cancellation.
[edit] Reprints
In the 1960s, at the height of the camp craze and the success of the Doc Savage reprints, Corinth Press issued nine Operator 5 adventures in paperback. Their low distribution made them collector's items almost from the very first, but didn't generate enough sales to continue the series. Two later attempts were also made to reprint the stories.
[edit] List of Operator#5 stories, giving volumes, numbers and dates
1) V1,1. (Apr 34) The Masked Invasion.
2) V1,2. (May 34) The Invisible Empire. An airbourne fortress, "The Atlantis" flies over the skies of America wreaking havoc on the country. Any planes which approach it are torn from the skies. The only chance is an undercover operator infiltrating it, in the form of Jimmy Christopher.
3) V1,3. (Jun 34) The Yellow Scourge. In this issue Christopher fought against "The Yellow Scourge". Everyone knew they meant the Chinese but names could not be mentioned for obvious reasons.
4) V1,4. (Jul 34) The Melting Death.
5) V2,1. (Aug 34) The Cavern of the Damned.
6) V2,2. (Sep 34) Master of the Broken Men.
7) V2,3. (Oct 34) Invasion of the Dark Legions.
8) V2,4. (Nov 34) The Green Death Mists.
9) V3,1. (Dec 34) Legions of Starvation.
10) V3,2. (Jan 35) The Red Invaders.
11) V3,3. (Feb 35) League of War Monsters.
12) V3,4. (Mar 35) The Army of the Dead.
13) V4,1. (Apr 35) March of the Flame Marauders.
14) V4,2. (May 35) Blood Reign of the Dictator.
15) V4,3. (Jun 35) Invasion of the Yellow Warlords.
16) V4,4. (Jul 35) Legions of the Death-Master.
17) V5,1. (Aug 35) Hosts of the Flaming Death. A man in a gold mask is behind numerous acts of sabotage which are done in an effort to ruin the American economy. Operator#5 goes after the Ukranian ambassador who is his only lead.
18) V5,2. (Sep 35) Invasion of the Crimson Death-Cult.
19) V5,3. (Oct 35) Attack of the Blizzard-Men.
20) V5,4. (Nov 35) Scourge of the Invisible Death in which Christopher fights against a British secret society which wanted to bring America down with the villain dressing like a War of Independence (British) redcoat. The man used machines which could open up holes in our atmosphere allowing deadly cosmic rays from space to carry out his threats.
21) V6,1. (Dec 35) Raiders of the Red Death featured Montezuma the third who wanted to establish an Aztec empire using a weapon which caused people to explode.
22) V6,2. (Jan 36) War Dogs of the Green Destroyer featured a dictator from Etoria, a tiny Mediterranean nation armed with a green gas that causes everything it touches to burst into flame.
23) V6,3. (Feb 36) Rockets from Hell.
24) V6,4. (Mar 36) War Master from the Orient.
25) V7,1. (Apr 36) Crime's Reign of Terror.
26) V7,2. (Jun 36) Death's Ragged Army where we see America on the twenty second day of an invasion by the Purple Empire under Emperor Maximilian I, who planned a reign of slaughter but was killed by a bomb thrown by Plugger Dugan. This however gave his even more bloodthirsty son, Rudolph a chance to take over in his stead, claiming that Operator#5 had killed Maximillian. As the story starts, the invaders from the Central Empire (Germany?) held all New England and most of the Eastern Seaboard. On the last page, with the President in a temporary HQ in Jacksonville, Florida appoints Jimmy Christopher in charge of all maneuvers against the Purple Army. This started an ongoing war that was to last till the end of issue 38 as battles were fought through the towns of America, across country, in the sky and at sea. Christopher was a master of disguise and along with his friends would risk great danger to learn secrets from the invaders or to save friends or whole populations being massacred by vile people who chopped heads off, stuck swords into helpless women, bayoneted babies, gassed whole towns and so on. Against them was a brave rag-tag Army of Americans (never assisted by European allies) who fought as their frontiersmen ancestors had fought a century before them.
27) V7,3. (Aug 36) Patriot's Death Battalion. Emperor Rudolph has been upgraded to Warlord of the World and his grey clad hordes sweep westward across America and the issue ends with the American forces being bottled up and the Central Empire forces have marched down from Canada and is at their flank.
28) V7,4. (Oct 36) The Bloody Forty-Five Days has a loot-laden train thundering across America, bearing twenty million dollars in gold, something that Jimmy Christopher (called Jimmy Wentworth on the first page blurb, Richard Wentworth being The Spider's alias) needs to buy weapons with to fight the Purple hordes and ends with bacteria bombs being dropped on the American forces.
29) V8,1. (Dec 36) America's Plague Battalions. The Purple Forces have taken Europe and Asia as well as two thirds of America. As the women of America fought back, Rudolph released his devastating cholera bombs. When you think things cannot get worse, the story ends with an immense fleet of Purple ships heading towards San Francisco.
30) V8,2. (Jan 37) Liberty's Suicide Legions starts with the invasion of the west coast by super-dreadnoughts which are armed with a secret weapon, under the evil Admiral Baroda (who of course speaks with a thick guttural language. In issue 2, the best of both worlds. The Atlantis, a super-flying fortress is in the hands of Asiatics who speak in a guttural language) and ends with Marshal Kremer smashing through their defences and marching on San Bernadino.
31) V8,3. (Feb 37) The Siege of the Thousand Patriots. The Purple Emperor's forces smash their way east over the Rockies while Christopher tries a desperate raid deep into enemy territory to try and snatch victory from defeat. 31 ends with an enemy consignment of secret weapons heading for the Rockies and they have to head it off.
32) V8,4. (Mar 37) Patriot's Death march. America are all but beaten and now a desperate fight back begins but things do not go well.
33) V9,1. (May 37) Revolt of the Lost Legions in which America is beaten and in chains, labouring for a blood maddened dictator and defiant patriots have their heads cut off but Christopher fights on, planning to snatch the Emperor's own weapons and use them against him.
34) V9,2. (Jul 37) Drums of Destruction. The goose-stepping armies of the Purple Emperor are massed in the passes of the Continental Divide and ready to swoop down on the American defenders but Operator#5 makes a dash into occupied territory where every hand is against him and his capture worth a whole providence to the captor. 34 ends with Rudolph threatening the death of every eldest son in the occupied territoies if the Americans do not withdraw from the Continental Divide within days.
35) V9,3. (Sep 37) The Army Without A Country has America fighting back again but when they charge the Purple Army, they find them hiding behind a wall of helpless Americans but by the end of the issue, the Purple army are routed and have taken to the hills.
36) V9,4. (Nov 37) The Bloody frontiers where we find that the Purple forces are not defeated and a decimated America launches primitive warfare against them and on top of this, they must face the Goth warriors of Urslup the Strong. Christopher kills Urslup in mortal combat but the issue ends with news that Shah Hi Mung's mongol troops, having invaded America has won a number of battles against American forces are now marching on New York, and worse, Charleston has been shelled, Purple soldiers landed and all residents put to the sword.
37) V10,1. (Jan 38) The Coming of the Mongol Hordes has the Mongol horde thundering through Pennsylvania, severed heads hanging from their saddles as they headed for New York with only a small band of gallant patriots waiting at Valley Forge to try and stop them. The thin line holds against the Mongols but the Purple fleet are now advancing on New York.
38) V10,2. (Mar 38) The Siege That Brought the Black Death. As the title of the issue tells us, this was where with harassed by the Mongol hordes on land and bombarded by the Purple fleet from sea, the Emperor releases the Black Death onto the American forces. The issue ends with the cowardly Purple Emperor, Rudolph at Jimmy Christopher's mercy, but he is shot by one of his own men who he had tortured for a mistake. The Purple invasion is ended as the defeated force sails off. Now it was back to single issue wars.
39) V10,3. (May 38) Revolt of the Devil-Men. As a ravaged America sought to rebuild itself, the evil Brown Shirts tried to enslave an exhausted America but were finally beaten with their leaders executed.
40) V10,4. (Jul 38) The Suicide Battalion. The first attack came from a force in Canada but Christopher and his friends traces the real menace to Europe and they go there to confront the three bandit nations of the Old World who are lined up against them. Germany and Italy were defeated but Japan is still to be reckoned with.
41) V11,1. (Sep 38) The Day of the Damned in which Japan continues its war against America, using the Mexican people and armed with the latest in mechanical warfare and tropical diseases. The Japanese are beaten back and leave America and Mexico as Diane recovers from the fever that almost killed her.
42) V11,2. (Nov 38) The Dawn That Shook the World. England and France have already fallen under the Invasion of the "New Dawn" and now the deathless men are taking over America.
43) V11,3. (Jan 39) When Hell Came to America. Another dictator attacks America and small towns vanish before the onslaught of a new weapon.
44) V11,4. (Mar 39) Invasion From the Sky. Airships come from the sky and the invaders are armed with a fire that cannot be extinguished.
45) V12,1. (May 39) Winged Hordes of the Yellow Vulture began the invasion by the "Yellow Vulture" force (which would see out the series) with a huge air armada sweeping over America and releasing plague germs. They are of course Japs, led by Moto Taronago (who had been head of the Japanese Secret Police) and his puppet, King Enoch. South Americans are persuaded to join the Japs and the issue ends with Texas and Lousiana overwhelmed by them
46) V12,2. (Jul 39) War Tanks of the Yellow Vulture. Much of middle America is now beaten and the Vulture's hordes advance on the remaining patriots in California. The story ends with the news that many of the steel producing plants in America have been destroyed, thus depriving them of ammunition.
47) V12,3. (Sep 39) Corpse Cavalry of the Yellow Vulture. Enemy tanks march across America and their new weapon is unleashed which turns day into darkest night. When Christopher finally triumphs comes the worst news of all: Washington DC has been totally oblitered. The President, his aides, and John Christopher are all gone.
48) V12,4. (Nov 39) The Army From Underground. Worst comes to worst. Tanks that can burrow under American lines, assassins firing at America's leaders, exploding corpses, Diane kidnapped by the Japs, a treacherous Japanese princess "She" who takes over, Nan Christopher in the path of tanks with giant blades fitted to them, designed to cut people to pieces, and the issue and series ends with the total destruction of Canada and the Japanese advancing on the small group of remaining American forces.
49) (Jan 40) Hell's Lost Battalion (not published)
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Information from the original pulp magazines.
