I have to admit that the book, A Doctor’s Sword, came about by chance. In May 2015, I sought a meeting with Con Collins of The Collins Press to discuss the possibility of the publisher reprinting Dr Aidan MacCarthy’s original memoir, A Doctor’s War. I had just finished a documentary on the story, which was due to be released in Irish cinemas in August 2015, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Dr MacCarthy’s memoir was first published in 1979 and is an engrossing first hand account of his story of survival during the Second World War, culminating with his survival of the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki.
My hope was that The Collins Press would reprint his memoir, and if someone read it they might like to see the film, and vice versa – “cross-marketing” is the appropriate term, so I have been told. Eventually, I secured a meeting and told Con the updated version of the story based on all of the research conducted in making the film, including the search for the origin of the samurai sword gifted to MacCarthy following the Japanese surrender. The meeting lasted about 90 minutes and I left the publisher a hard drive containing about 9GB of previously unseen photographs, maps and documents, all of which had surfaced during the research and production of the documentary. I was happy that Con seemed to agree that it would be a good idea to reprint MacCarthy’s memoir.
Two days later I received a phone call while eating breakfast. It was Con, who said he believed this was a new version of the story and he asked me if I would be interested in writing it. Having never written a book before I was taken aback, but at the same time, if someone offers you such an opportunity it would be foolish to say no.
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The level of detail required for the production of a documentary is less than what is required for a book and I was delighted to have a chance to delve into the story again and gain a deeper understanding of such a fascinating individual. I could work without the responsibilities of securing the considerable funding required to produce a film, sourcing archive footage, organising translations and the general demands of working as part of a very small film production team. It was just me, my laptop and as much information as I could gather.
I was delighted to write the book because in many ways, the documentary, through necessity, tells the story in a very condensed format. MacCarthy’s story is so epic in scale and the fascinating details are such that the documentary, at 70 minutes, needed to remain focused solely on his personal journey. While we made the film, Gary Lennon and I, with two incredible editors (Breege Rowley and Ariadna Fatjó-Vilas), had to make difficult decisions to omit so much of the story because there was simply too much information. A book on the other hand, can be read for a few hours, put down and read again at a pace that suits the reader. This provides the opportunity to go into much greater detail, include references and details on historical context which, hopefully, present the reader with the complete story.
So, in early June last year, I sat down to begin the process of writing my first book. I didn’t know where to start. As part of my work as an academic I had written research papers and also submitted numerous funding applications while making the documentary. But this was a lot more daunting in scale.
The first thing I needed to do was to research the entire history of the second World War. I wanted to understand Dr MacCarthy’s experiences in the context of the conflict. I gathered together a huge stack of books on the period, POW memoirs, journals and other documents. I began taking notes.
I created a huge wall chart with a row for each of the years of the war, I divided these rows into months. Each month was then sub-divided into three rows; one was for Aidan MacCarthy’s personal journey (where he was, his age, etc), another had details of what was going on in the wider war, while a third related to what was going on in his family life back home in Castletownbere. This provided an overview of how these three stories interweave. Looking at this chart, coincidences that I had not previously noticed, began to emerge. For example, the day he left Scotland on his way to Asia in December 1941 the Japanese had just entered the war and were attacking Pearl Harbour, Singapore and Hong Kong. Just a few days previously the Manhattan Project had begun in the US and the Americans were working on developing the atomic bomb.
At one stage during his captivity he was sent to a Red Cross “show camp” where he was treated marginally better than he had been in other camps. It was a gift which he later credited with saving his life – this stroke of luck was just days after his thirtieth birthday.
By interviewing his family members, friends, neighbours and going back over all of the research conducted for the film I set out to give a more complete account of his life, from his birth in 1913 to his death in 1995.
Cross-referencing documents MacCarthy had gathered in the POW camps with original files from the period which are now available online brought up some startling new perspectives. For example, by studying the US Air Force account of the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki it emerged that not only had MacCarthy been in a city on which an atomic bomb was dropped, he was actually in the building which the atomic bomb targeted – the Mitsubishi Steel & Arms Works. The US wanted to destroy the factory as it was manufacturing ships for the Japanese navy.
In September 2015, I visited the UK National Archives at Kew, the Imperial War Museum and also the RAF Museum at Hendon in north London. It was during this research trip that I came across some fascinating primary sources such as the original RAF citation describing the events that led to MacCarthy being awarded the George Medal for bravery. He had rescued the crew of a burning bomber that had crash-landed on an ammunition dump in May 1941 at RAF Honington in England. The official RAF document provided a more accurate account of the terrifying events than what he described his memoir, in which MacCarthy says he was “lucky enough” to receive the award. The genuine, self-effacing modesty of his own interpretation of events throughout his incredible journey are sometimes frustratingly short on detail.
In another example, he describes the atomic bomb attack and its aftermath in just four pages of his memoir – a little over 1,000 words. He consistently describes one near-death experience after another in an almost off-hand manner: any one of these experiences would provide someone else with the basis for an entire book or life story.
As MacCarthy grew older, he became less guarded about his ordeal and fortunately, he recorded a number of interviews in which he provides more details on his experiences. These recordings have been essential in creating a complete account of his life story.
Aidan MacCarthy’s memory is still held in high regard by the RAF. In November 2016 a new hospital will open at an RAF base in Honington, England. Seventy-five years after he was decorated for bravery for saving the crew of that bomber, the new facility will be named after Dr Aidan MacCarthy.
