He received a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 1946 to study the Chinese language under Bernhard Karlgren in Sweden, and Henne graduated with the fil.kand.
degree from the Stockholm University College in 1948, and went to South China to study further.
He made a name studying Hakka Chinese, and later learnt Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Thai in Japan and the United States.
He then worked with Japanese tuition at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration from 1988 to 1992.
He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1970 and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters from 1979, and was decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun in 1988.