The Purple Invasion story #1 of 13
New England and the Eastern Seaboard were already in the hands of the invaders from the Central Empire! The brutal Purple Emperor, War-Master of Europe and Asia, was beating America to her knees, using his horrible Green Gas, beheading all who resist! The President had fled to a ramshackle courthouse in Florida. With the American Defense Forces routed, only Operator #5, Ace of the Intelligence, and his tiny band of loyal guerrillas could hope to check the mad conqueror. A true-to-life, thrilling episode, dramatized from Jimmy Christopher’s own personal history of the Second War of Independence!
After being downgraded to bimonthly status in 1936, a new direction was sought for Operator #5. What has become known as the “War in Peace of the Pulps” commenced with the searing novel, Death’s Ragged Army, which appeared in the June-July, 1936 issue of the magazine. The timing was interesting. The Spanish Civil War––a kind of prelude to World War II––ignited in July of that year. Conflict would trouble Europe for the next nine years.
Never before in the Pulps had such a drastic shift happened to an established character. Nor had it worked so successfully as Jimmy’s change up did.
The premise was simple. The legions of the Germanic Central Empire in Europe, led by the forces of Emperor Maximilian, simply swept in and took over New England, initiating the Second War of Independence. Jimmy Christopher and his friends and allies in the Intelligence Service, virtually overnight went from being free citizens of the United States to becoming guerrilla soldiers in a desperate undertaking to hurl back to Europe the forces of the Purple Emperor and his bloodthirsty son, Rudolf. Overnight, Operator #5 magazine went from being an espionage-adventure title to a thundering war pulp. The legendary Purple Invasion series had begun.
Death’s Ragged Army is read with stirring intensity by Milton Bagby. Originally published in the June-July 1936 issue of Operator #5 magazine.
