TARZAN and “THE FOREIGN LEGION”
By Edgar Rice Burroughs

[Dust jacket promo blurb from the ERB, Inc. first edition.]

A combination of circumstances and a mishap of war stranded Tarzan of the Apes in the mountains of Japanese-held Sumatra nearly two and one-half years after the invasion.  Here, in company with American fliers, natives, Dutch guerrillas, a Chinese, a Dutch girl, and the granddaughter of a Borneo head-hunter, he found full scope for his marvelous, jungle-trained senses.

Sumatra is approximately the size and shape of California. And right there all similarity ceases. This island of the Netherland East Indies sprawls across the equator. Its great forests, its lush jungles, its mountainous backbone are the abode of such an aggregation of savage life as may not be found in an area of similar size anywhere else in the world.

There are elephants, rhinoceroses, bears, wild dogs, tigers, orangutans, monkeys, wild cattle, cobras, pythons, and Japs, just to enumerate a few. There are native collaborationists and bands of Dutch outlaws. The stage was already set for high adventure and other actors were already there when Tarzan arrived.

The close companions who shared these adventures with him were a pilot from Oklahoma City, waist gunners from Brooklyn and Texas, a ball turret gunner from Chicago, a radio man from Van Nuys, California, a Chinese, a Dutch reserve officer, an Eurasian girl, and blonde Corrie van der Meer, the daughter of a Dutch Sumatran planter.

Viewing the diverse racial origins of this aggregation, their friends of the Dutch guerrillas dubbed them The Foreign Legion. If you crave thrills, excitement, and adventure, join “The Foreign Legion” in its attempt to escape from this stronghold of the enemy. If you like a little love, you will find that, also, in this story of an heroic band of loyal comrades. You will also find, as the Americans did, that the Dutch are very nice people.

[Promo blurbs from Ballantine edition 23859]

A strange quirk of fate catapults Tarzan into the jungles of Sumatra. Alone, the great forests would hold no terrors for Tarzan. But it is imperative that he save a helpless young Dutch girl and an oddly assorted handful of men from the blood-mad killers who hunt them. He must lead them to victory!

The jungles of Sumatra teem with life… its denizens are as wild and dangerous as any that Tarzan has encountered far away in Africa among his friends Jad-bal-ja, Tantor and little Nkima. But here in Sumatra there are no friends. Only the steaming forest, with its orangutans, coiling pythons and the striped night hunter – tiger! And there are other hunters too, little men who know the jungle well, who are armed, with rifles and machine-guns and who hunt for one reason only – to kill! For this is that most cruel madness that men call war.

Caught in its toils, Tarzan and his group of Americans, Dutch, Chinese, Eurasian – “The Foreign Legion,” in short – fight their way to the coast were an even greater peril awaits them. For in order to escape, they must sail a small, old-fashioned ship across shark-infested seas through the war-torn waters of the Pacific Ocean, all the way to Australia!