Q&A with Bruce McCandless III

  

 

 

 

Bruce McCandless III is the editor of the new book Iron and Fire: The Pacific War Story of Destroyer Captain Bruce McCandless, his grandfather's World War II memoir. His other books include Wonders All Around.  

 

Q: What role did you play in bringing your grandfather’s World War II memoir to publication?

 

A: My grandfather dictated the memoir to his daughter Sue in the mid-1960s, at a time in his life when he was quite ill.

 

Despite his illness, he was still able to recall with remarkable clarity his part in some of the seminal events of the war: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the naval battles of Guadalcanal, kamikazes descending on his ship off the coast of Okinawa. The manuscript was then set aside and apparently forgotten for several decades.

 

After my parents passed on, my wife found the memoir buried under bales of hay in their barn. We opened the stationery box that held it and started reading—and realized immediately that this was a story that people would want to hear. I acted as editor, ghost writer, and to, some extent, agent.

 

And since the memoir didn’t have a title, I gave it one: Iron and Fire: The Pacific War Story of Destroyer Captain Bruce McCandless.

 

Q: You’ve also written about your father’s experiences in space--how did this compare to writing that book?

 

A: They were very different experiences. My book about growing up with my dad, Bruce McCandless II, is called Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and The First Untethered Flight in Space. It was a work of personal experience and recollection.

 

But I never knew my grandfather, and I didn’t write Iron and Fire—I just edited it and helped to bring it to publication. Iron and Fire thus feels less personal to me. I’m more a spectator than a parent this go-round, if that makes sense.

 

Q: How would you describe your grandfather’s legacy?

 

A: His primary legacy is devotion to duty—despite long odds and desperate circumstances. The second, I think, is his devotion to his wife and four kids.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

A: I hope and believe readers will take away the sense that even normal people like my grandfather can do extraordinary things in defense of their country and out of love for their comrades and friends.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m writing fiction again, which is where I started. I’m the author of a series of novels set in the American West and featuring a Texas ranger named Jewel T. Lightfoot, who gets involved in desperate predicaments featuring supernatural perils. It’s like Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove meets the old Darren McGavin TV series The Night Stalker.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Iron and Fire will appeal to anyone who is interested in American history and in the Pacific Theatre of World War II in particular. But it’s not just battles and bullets. It’s also a personal and a family saga that I think will appeal to general readers—male and female, young and old.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Bruce McCandless III.