A Doctor's War
War and military biography, World War II
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
As an RAF medical officer, Aidan MacCarthy served in France, survived Dunkirk, and was interned by the Japanese in Java, where his ingenuity helped his fellow prisoners through awful conditions. While en route to Japan in 1944, his ship was… torpedoed, sending him into the Pacific. Miraculously, MacCarthy was rescued by a whaling boat—only to be re-interned in Japan. Ironically, it was the dropping of the atomic bomb at Nagasaki that saved his life, though it also meant being an eyewitness to the horror and devastation it caused. Long out of print, this remarkable war memoir was rediscovered during a journey through Ireland by Pete McCarthy, author of McCarthy’s Bar, who describes it as “jaw-dropping.”