BH: I am inspired by people who, in the face
of danger and adversity and from a position
of weakness, display great courage and selfsacrifice for the greater good. That happened
on both "sides" of the story I tell in Rescue
at Los Baños: from both the internees being
held prisoner and the military personnel who
risked their lives to try to rescue them.
Q: Did you always know that you wanted
to become a journalist and author?
BH: I worked for students newspapers in
high school. After military service during
Vietnam, I return to college on the G.I. Bill,
taking lots of journalism and history
courses. I became a newspaper reporter at
age 22, and haven't stopped reporting and
writing since.
Q: Can you tell us readers a little bit
about your number one best-seller, And
the Sea Will Tell? "Grips you by the
throat from beginning to end."—
Cleveland Plain Dealer
BH: Alone with her new husband on a tiny
Pacific atoll, a young woman, combing the
beach, finds an odd aluminum container
washed up out of the lagoon, and beside it
on the sand something glitters: a gold tooth
in a scorched human skull. The investigation
that follows uncovers an extraordinarily
complex and puzzling true-crime story. I coauthored this book with Vincent Bugliosi,
who had recounted the successful
prosecution of mass murderer Charles
Manson in the bestseller Helter Skelter. We
were able to draw together hundreds of
conflicting details of the mystery, and
reconstruct what really happened when four
people found hell in a tropical paradise. And
the Sea Will Tell reconstructed the events of
this riveting true-murder mystery. And the
Sea Will Tell was only my second hardcover
book, and it went #1 on the New York
Times bestseller list — a heady experience,
indeed. It was also the basis of a highlyrated four-hour CBS miniseries starring
Rachel Ward and Richard Crenna.
Q: What would say was the most
powerful thing that you found out about
the WWII Japanese War Camps while
doing your research?
BH: In the Philippines, there was at least
one mass execution of U.S. military POWs
forced into a wooden bunker which was then
saturated with gasoline and set ablaze. This
was done when the Japanese thought the
prisoners were about to be freed. At Los
Baños, the situation involved the purposeful
withholding of food, which caused more
than 2,000 people to suffer mightily and
unnecessarily, with many starving to death
before they could be rescued. That -- and
other things that went on in and around the
camp -- were later judged to be war crimes.
Q: What's like balancing both jobs as a
journalist and author?
BH: I have been a full-time book author
since the mid-1980s.
Q: What are your other hobbies beside
writing?
BH: Travelling to first-world cities and
countries, among them New York and
London, France and Italy. I am an inveterate
cocktailer and foodie, and am always on the
lookout for dark bars and fabulous
restaurants.
Q: Where can readers find you and your
books online?
BH: My website is
BruceHendersonBooks.com, which has a
complete list of all my books, with