UCC graduate survives atomic bomb

9 Dec 2013

The incredible wartime exploits of UCC medical graduate (1939) Dr Aidan MacCarthy will be recounted in full this Monday night (9 December 2013) at 10pm on TV3.

Dr MacCarthy survived Dunkirk, a ship torpedoing, slave labour and even an atomic bomb, arriving home with a Samurai Sword in tow.

The RAF doctor and George’s medal recipient from Castletownbere in West Cork emerged unscathed from the strafing of the Luftwaffe at Dunkirk (physically at any rate), only to be captured by the Japanese whilst serving in Asia. There he endured several tortuous years as a prisoner of war, even living to tell the tale following the torpedoing of the prison ship he was being transported on in the final year of the war. This feat paled in comparison to one another – his survival of the Nagasaki atomic bomb at nearly point blank range.  

‘A Doctor’s War’ will chronicle how Dr MacCarthy had been unable to find work in Cork, forcing a move to London where he joined the RAF as WWII began. He was evacuated from Dunkirk and received the George’s Medal for bravery, having saved the crew of a Lancaster bomber which had crash landed returning from a raid in Germany. He volunteered for service in Asia, was captured in Java by the Japanese and spent over three years as Prisoner of War. As the war entered its final year he was shipped back to Japan, during this journey he survived a sinking ship torpedoed by American submarine and was brought to the safety of Nagasaki where he spent the final year of the war working as slave labour for the Mitsubishi corporation.

On 9 August 1945 at 11:02am, he survived the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki, despite being 800 metres from the hypocenter of the bomb. He later returned home, a finely crafted Samurai sword at his side, gifted to him by the POW camp commander following the surrender of Japan.

Quite aside from its fascinating storyline, the programme is unusual in that animation and an original score will accompany interviews and archive footage, presenting a vastly more personal story than the grand narrative normally heard in historical documentaries.

‘A Doctor’s War’ will be broadcast on TV3 at 10pm this Monday 9 December 2013.

For more information about this project and the search to find the origins of a Samurai sword given to Dr MacCarthy following the surrender of Japan check out: www.adoctorssword.com and https://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Doctors-Sword/594239187300063