An Cosantóir

tal, he soon found out when a Japanese doctor started to work on his elbow without anaesthetic, leaving him to pass out from the pain. He came around to find that the Japanese medic had no idea what he was doing and soon left after making things worse. Mercifully, a local surgeon who was assisting carried out very competent remedial work. Eventually the prisoners were brought to Singapore for to beat him to a pulp, shattering his elbow and putting him in hospital. Curious as to why he was tied so tightly to the bed in the hospi- history | 29 transportation to Japan. One of the crew of their Japanese coaster told how he had been torpedoed nine times and he felt that the next would be his last. The ship was rat infested and the POWs were locked below decks where the smell was horrendous. As Aidan tried to sleep one night he felt a rat and sat up to swat it away. At that moment the ship was hit by a torpedo and the men either side of him were killed, their necks broken by the shockwave. Clambering onto the deck of the sinking ship Aidan saw the American submarine surface and then dive. The surviving prisoners were picked up and thrown back into the water by the Japanese Navy when they arrived on the scene. Eventually picked up by a whaler they were brought to Nagasaki to work on an aircraft carrier in the Mitsubishi steel works. They weak- ened the rivets in order to sabotage the carrier but this was unnecessary as the Americans sank the carrier at her moorings. They were then moved to a coalmine where they were lucky to have experienced British miners in their company whose skills saved them from the fate of many other hapless prisoners whose mines collapsed on them. Morale at this stage was at an all-time low as the prisoners could see no way home. Then in August 1945 they were given shovels and told to dig what they assumed were their own graves. Howev- er, on August 6th Aidan and his fellow prisoners awoke to 50 B-29s bombing the city. While this gave the men a stay of execution they were terrified that they would be killed by their own side. The following day two lone bombers overflew the city and dropped something that appeared to have three parachutes at- tached. Instinctively, Aidan dived into his own hand-dug grave to seek shelter while some of the others sat on top of the shelters watching events unfold. Suddenly there was a blue flash, fol- lowed by a magnesium-white flash that blinded even those below ground. Then came a loud and flat explosion. When Aidan looked out of his life-saving 'grave' the sight that met him was apocalyptic. Bodies were strewn everywhere, the POWs who hadn't taken shelter had been carbonised, and the mainly wooden city of Nagasaki was in ruins, with fires every- where. The survivors thought that the world had ended. Never- theless, they began to tend to the injured and dying. It took a few weeks for the camps to be liberated, although the guards changed their tune in the meantime. However, those that were caught later by their ex-prisoners were sometimes dealt with swiftly. Amazingly Dr Aidan MacCarthy went on to live life to the full, although he never forgot his experiences and his life was marred by the beating he received during his captivity. His survival of years of brutal captivity demonstrates the awesome power of the human spirit even under the most intense pressure. If you are ever passing through Castletownbere, why not drop into the famous MacCarthy's Bar and raise a glass to this amazing Irishman. Aidan published his wartime memoirs in 1979, titled 'A Doc- tor's War' (Republished by the Collins Press in 2005, ISBN: 978- 1903464700). He sadly passed away in Northwood, London on 11 October 1995. www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE

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