12 Questions with a Writer: John R. Bruning (2024)

1. Who are you, what have you written, and why?

My name is John R. Bruning, I’ve been writing history and working in the field since 1988. My first jobs were with the computer wargame & simulation industry. At Strategic Simulations Inc., I was a playtester during the summer breaks between terms at the University of Oregon. I worked on First Over Germany, Battles of Napoleon, Second Front, Typhoon of Steel, and the Gold Box series, including Pool of Radiance for the C64, which was the first computer adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons.

While in grad school at the U of O, I worked for Dynamix Inc., as the historian for the Aces series of flight sims. So Red Baron, Aces of the Pacific & Aces Over Europe paid my way through school. I left grad school to become the designer on Red Baron II, then left two years later to begin a writing career.

Since 1996, I’ve written or co-authored 25 books and numerous documentary scripts. Early in my writing career, I also functioned as a sports stringer, reporting on college hoops and the 2000 Super Bowl. Brassey’s published my first book, “Crimson Sky: The Air Battle for Korea” in 1999. In 2001, they published “Jungle Ace,” an adaptation of my M/A thesis, which was a biography of Oregon’s top ace, Gerald R. Johnson. My life and career changed dramatically with book number six, “The Devil’s Sandbox” and “House to House” with David Bellavia. The Sandbox ultimately led me to post-Katrina New Orleans and Afghanistan, as well as twelve awesome years of running an OPFOR group that provided training to infantry units, law enforcement agents, and Reserve Army battalions.

2. What is it that draws you to writing?

I’d have to say I’m singularly ill-equipped to do anything else. In 1996, I was living in a small Oregon town with few employment opportunities. I’d given up my original dream of becoming a professor of military history—I would have been an awful fit in academia—and was searching for a way to do what I loved—research military history—and not have to move out of the area. I’d always loved to write. I was an extreme introvert as a young kid, so writing was the way I expressed myself. Later, a very close-knit group of friends in high school pulled me out of my shell, but writing remained sort of my inner world, as well as the way I best communicated.

Still, it didn’t mean I was any good at it. I’d written parts of computer game manuals going back to Battles of Napoleon in 1988, then later the historical sections of the Dynamix flight sims. I was initially told my writing was too academic by my boss, Damon Slye, so I had to unlearn the way I was taught to write in grad school. If Damon hadn’t given me the space to make that break, I’d never have had the career I’ve had. In 1993, the company contracted with a freelance writer to deliver the historic section of Aces Over Europe. I was soooo hurt. When the writer turned it in, I was shocked at how bad it was. I raged and got all upset, then decided to do something about it. Starting on a Friday night, I worked 48 hours straight and delivered an alternate historic section to Damon Monday morning. Damon read it, he had others read the two historic sections and everyone agreed mine was better. That was one of the first times I thought maybe I had some chops.

Later that year, I sent part of my M/A thesis to former 49’er head coach Bill Walsh. He was a major consumer of military history & used to give locker room talks filled with references to the Battle of Midway and Gettysburg, etc. He was at Stanford in 1993. To my astonishment, he read it and wrote an incredibly kind note about how moved he’d been by Gerald Johnson’s story.

Those two events gave me the confidence to give the writing life a go. I’ve been exceptionally blessed ever since.

3. This is a BIG book with a micro-focus on the aviators that held off the Japanese for two critical months in the early days of WWII. Tell us how you settled on the story told in “53 Days on Starvation Island” and the process you undertook to write it.

53 Days was a radically different process for me than any other book.

I originally wanted to tell the story of Marion Carl on Guadalcanal. He was the first WWII vet I interviewed, and that experience changed the arc and course of my life in 1991. Oral history became the bedrock of my career as a result of that day in Roseburg.

In 2010, I was involved in a helicopter mishap in Afghanistan. While on the ground, wondering if I’d get through the day, I made a mental bucket list of books I wanted to write if I got home. Indestructible and Race of Aces were the first two on that list. A book on Marion Carl was the third.

As I dove into those first weeks on Guadalcanal, I realized there was a bigger, untold story here. The scope of the book grew until it really became the story of the first two squadrons to get to the island in August 1942, as seen through their key leaders: John L Smith, Marion Carl, and Dick Mangrum.

This was the first manuscript I’ve written and rewritten multiple times. As the scope evolved, I went back and totally rewrote the story several times. In the process, we were dealing with some heavy stuff as a nation & a community. COVID, the death of my dear friend and literary agent Jim Hornfischer, the Santiam Canyon Wildfires in September 2020 that nearly got me, and came within a few hundred yards of the woodland cabin I’ve written in since 2009.

I finished the manuscript in December 2022 and took the first few months of 2023 off. I hadn’t had a break since 2015, so this was a much-needed recharge.

4. This is an exhaustively researched book. How did you access the information from the Japanese side?

The main focus of the story of course is on the American Marines and their experience. However, I did utilize a number of Japanese sources, including secondary ones in which I used translation apps to read. Japanese periodicals and magazines, soft cover portfolios, etc. were also helpful. I did have a trove of captured Japanese documents, US intel assessments from the period, captured Japanese diaries (including one from a G4M crew member who was later killed over New Guinea), etc. that I’d collected over the years from NARA, the USN archives and the USAF Historical Research Center at Maxwell.

5. What did you learn in the writing process and what surprised you?

Several things. First, the story of VMSB-232 has never really been fully told. If you look at the secondary sources, Mangrum and his squadron appear twice—August 25 and August 28^th when they attacked Japanese reinforcement convoys heading for Guadalcanal. Those were pivotal moments, but the squadron’s contribution was much larger than that. Starting in early September, its crews formed the tip of the spear against the “ant freight” effort to bring 1,100 veteran Japanese troops, their supplies, and vehicles to Guadalcanal via landing craft & barges. The SBD crews interdicted this effort, killed or wounded roughly 300 of the troops, and scattered most of the rest. Denying those men to General Kawaguchi played a critical role in the Battle of Edson’s Ridge and helped secure it as an American victory.

Second, the pilots and gunners who flew with Marion Carl, John L. Smith, and Dick Mangrum were an incredibly unusual and diverse lot. They were blue-blood Ivy Leaguers and fraternity kids paired with hardscrabble working-class sons of immigrants and sharecroppers. They came from every socio-economic background. The Marine Corps made them equals, and they bonded as tightly as any unit I’ve ever written about through my career. I wanted to tell that story as well, so it is a major subplot of the book.

6. What do you want people to take away from this book?

I wrote this book in part for my son and his friends. Gen Z has been savaged by us Gen Xers and the Boomers as being soft, confused, pampered, entitled, etc. etc. The truth is, that’s how the WWI generation saw their kids in 1940-41: soft. Unable to meet the challenges of a global war. Heck, our enemies believed that too.

It is hard to imagine that now, given the mystic and legend of the Greatest Generation. I’m sure the WWII gen was told by their parents, “You kids have it so good. You never had to live through the Panic of 1877….”

Anyway, these young American Marines were thrust into an impossible situation in one of the darkest hours of American history. They were ill-equipped, undersupplied, and half-trained at best. They faced some of the best and most veteran aviators in air combat history, some of whom had been flying in combat since John L’s 2^nd Lieutenants were playing JV football at their local high schools. They were bombed, shelled, sniped on the ground, shot up, burned, forced to bail out, and escape and evade in the air. Only one or two of John L’s pilots went all 53 Days without a crash landing or a bailout.

They starved on maggoty Japanese rice captured by the Mud Marines around the airfield. Most lost 20-30% of their body weight by the end of the deployment. They suffered the full range of tropical diseases: dysentery to malaria and things Stateside docs had never seen. And going into the deployment, their senior officer present told them their mission was to buy time with their lives. They were expected to die, just die hard.

They not only were the measure of the moment, but they bent history to their will and grit. They stemmed the Japanese tide and set the table for the victory at Guadalcanal that came several months after the few survivors had been withdrawn.

That’s the kind of stuff we Americans are made of. In our darkest hours, enough good men and women step forward to save the day and sustain our radical experiment in representative government.

I hope young men read this book and understand that they’ve got this grit in them too. It is part of our collective American DNA. This is part of their heritage, part of our national legacy. The difference between Gen Z and the WWII generation is this: Gen Z hasn’t been tested yet. Not like the Greatest Generation was. If and when that day arrives, I have no doubt we’ll find they’ve blended their own generational identity with the bedrock of toughness that runs through every epoch of American history.

In the meantime, I do hope the Gen Z’ers who read 53 Days can take inspiration from the discipline, strength of character, loyalty, selfless leadership, and courage these average Americans displayed while in Marine Corps uniforms.

7. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

The business is very, very different from when I started. It has always been exceptionally tough to break into. More so today. If I were to do it again, I’d start with a platform on social media. A TikTok channel, YouTube, podcast—something that enables you to create and grow a built-in audience. A large following will help land an agent and convince editors that there is a market for what you want to write.

8. What is your favorite book and why?

I love Steinbeck. I reread Sweet Thursday every few years and always take something different away from it. East of Eden is another favorite. But hands down, the book I love the most is MacKinlay Kantor’s poetic novel, Glory for Me. I carried that book on every mission but one when I was embedded as a combat photojournalist in Afghanistan in 2010. In fact, Kantor was an inspiration for me to even go do that. He was in his 40s when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the services all turned him down due to his age. So he went into combat as a correspondent. Flew bomber missions over Germany, landed in Normandy and followed the 3^rd Army east through the final year of the war. Saw the concentration camps firsthand.

When he came home, Jack Warner asked him to write a screenplay on what it was like to return after combat to a peaceful nation. The disconnect and the dissonance the warriors felt as they shed their uniforms were already apparent in the wake of VJ-Day. Kantor took a couple of cases of bourbon into the mountains and wrote for months. He emerged not with a screenplay, but a poetic novel that in my eyes, is one of the best pieces of writing on the wounds of combat ever penned. It is simply brilliant. It became the basis for “The Best Years of Our Lives,” which is a favorite movie of mine.

9. You’re an author of your own books as well as a “credited writer” who helps other people share their stories. Is the approach different and what do you look for when selecting a project, be it a “John Bruning Book” or a “with John Bruning Book”?

Yeah, the processes are very different. I love collaborations in part because I’ve sought to give a voice to those without one in this realm, plus I can stay out of the public eye. Promoting books is really, really tough on me. The signings, the articles, and TV/web/video podcast appearances—they take me way, way, way out of my comfort zone. Somebody called me a minor celebrity the other day and I cannot tell you how much that made me cringe. I’m happiest in the woods at the little cabin I’ve used since 2009, typing away with my cat and dog as company. That’s probably ultra-antisocial of me. 😊

As far as what I look for with a collaboration: I’ll tell you, ego is the first red flag. If somebody wants to write a book about how awesome they are, I’m not the person for the gig. If they want to tell the story of the people around them, and how awesome they were—now I’m interested.

The next step is to see if we fit as people. I like writing with people who will become lifelong friends. Ric Prado, David Bellavia, Sean Parnell, Ken Ruiz, Dan Pedersen—they all became like family to me. The one time I violated this boundary, and took a gig with a person I did not mesh with—man it was an absolutely disastrous experience.

10. You write a lot of very personalized history, almost memoir in a lot the cases where you’re helping someone tell their story. I often say that in some ways, writing “popular history” is writing “creative non-fiction”? What is it about these stories that draws you?

The human side of combat is often overlooked by historians. The first pass at history following WWII—especially aviation history—was written either at a 30,000-foot strategic sort of level or a larger-than-life wartime hero micro level. The truth is, most of the people I’ve written about I idolized as a kid. Marion Carl, Gerald Johnson, Bong & McGuire—they were my rock stars growing up. After having been to combat, the sort of “male adventure book” approach to combat narratives didn’t work for me. I wanted to tell it on a different level, show the effects, and humanize the men and women who were touched by the fires of combat. Once you strip away the hero mystique, the story underneath is so much more important and interesting. They weren’t superheroes. They were average Americans doing extraordinary things. They were flawed, they made mistakes. Ultimately, they overcame their own fears and insecurities to accomplish something timeless and important. I find that absolutely amazing.

11. I think “53 Days” does an exceptional job of humanizing its subjects. You really make these people come alive eighty years later. As a Marine, a combat veteran, and the grandson of a WWII Marine infantryman, I loved how you exposed internal struggles in men and tactical leaders like Marion Carl, Dick Mangrum, and “John L.” Smith.

Thank you, these guys were exceptional human beings and leaders. Their leadership overcame the deficits in training, equipment, material, medical supplies, etc. They were beloved by their men, who followed them to the edge of their own endurance and beyond. I wanted to tell that story and show how these three men were able to inspire such loyalty in the midst of such hardship.

12. What have I not asked that I should have?

Well, for those of you who follow me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, you know that I most frequently post about my oddball tribe of pets. Sylvie, my Turkish Van cat, has more followers on Instagram than I do. Her dog pal, Gwen, is a rescue from the Middle East with quite a story. The two go everywhere with me, and Syl will swim, climb trees, and happily torture to death and eat any small rodents that she happens to seize while we’re on our daily adventures around the Cascade Mountains or Coast Range in Oregon.

They are my constant companions. Writing is a solitary profession. If you get lonely easily, it isn’t a great career path. These two have been with me through every book I’ve written since 2018, most of the time with Gwen at my feet and Sylvie draped across my forearms as I type.

You can get 53 Days on Starvation Island here.