Our father hell of war his legacy Returned from with a sword... of true heroism
DISPLAYED in pride of place at Maccarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere, County Cork, is a surprising object: an ancient, ceremonial Japanese samurai sword. It was the prize possession of Dr Aidan Maccarthy, father of Adrienne and Niki, who now run the bar.
The sword was enormously important to Aidan during the Second World War. But as they were growing up, Adrienne and Niki confess they had no idea of its huge significance because their father never told them anything about his war.
“He never really said much to us because his story was too horrific,” says Niki. “It was a case of stiff upper lip and get on with it. There was no counselling in those days.”
Adrienne adds: “We knew not to probe. He’d been through so much and had terrible nightmares. Why bring it all back?”
All that changed in 1979.
In the wake of a brain tumour – thought to have been caused by the regular beatings he suffered in various Japanese prisoner of war camps – Aidan was persuaded by his surgeon to keep mentally sharp by writing about his war.
That manuscript was turned into a book entitled A Doctor’s War, which is now studied in Irish schools.
As soon as they read it, his two daughters realised their father had one of the most extraordinary individual tales of the entire war.
He is thought to be the only person to have survived both the evacuation of Dunkirk and the bombing of Nagasaki. But perhaps the most astounding part of it for Adrienne and Niki was discovering the truth behind their father’s sword.
Having been imprisoned in the most savage conditions at Keisen Camp 26 in Nagasaki, Aidan and his fellow Pows were overjoyed when they were released on August 16, 1945, after Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender. Adrienne takes up the story.
“All the Pows went to find the commandant of the camp, Second Lieutenant Isao Kusuno. The rest of the prisoners really wanted to tear him apart, but my dad stepped in.”
The doctor did not want his fellow Pows to descend to the barbaric level of their captors.
Anxious to ensure that the commandant faced the due process of the law, he locked him in a cell and threw the key into the sea. In that instant, Aidan saved Kusuno’s life.
As a symbol of his gratitude, afterwards Kusuno gave Aidan his precious sword. He wrote an accompanying note saying the gift was, “A token of our friendship at the outbreak of peace.” The story is recounted in new documentary called A Doctor’s Sword.
Eager to learn more about the connection between her father and the commandant, Niki travels to Japan in the film. She is amazed when Kusuno’s grandson gets in touch after reading a newspaper article about the sword. In a profoundly affecting moment beside Kusuno’s grave, his grandson tells Niki: “I’m deeply moved that your father saved my grandfather’s life when the other prisoners tried to kill him.
“Things could have been very different afterwards. If your father had not saved my grandfather, I might not be here. So I’m very grateful that he saved my grandfather.”
Reverentially holding the sword in the bar now, Adrienne reflects on its enduring power. “It’s a weapon, no matter what, but it’s such an important part of my dad’s life that it is like part of our family.”
Yet this was not Aidan’s only moment of heroism during the war.
Soon after volunteering for the RAF, the doctor was caught up in the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. He treated wounded Allied soldiers on the beach while being constantly bombarded by the Luftwaffe.
“He was trying to keep things calm for three days and nights in a foxhole on a beach,” says Adrienne.
“Some were screaming, some were praying, some were singing and some were hysterical.what bravery to stay there and try to keep order.”
On the way back to England Aidan’s ship was torpedoed, leaving many soldiers injured. The doctor proceeded to set up a makeshift
operating theatre in the ship’s dining room to treat the wounded.
And he displayed similar courage the following year when he saved three men after a plane crash landed in a bomb dump at RAF Honington, the base where he was stationed.
“He ran towards the burning plane while everybody else ran in the opposite direction,” says Adrienne.
“He just acted on instinct. Even as a boy he’d been brave, rescuing people from sinking boats here in Castletownbere.”
The doctor was awarded the George Medal for his bravery. As a further tribute, in 2017 Prince Harry opened a medical centre at RAF Honington named after Aidan.
AFTER being captured by the Japanese in Java in 1942, the doctor experienced three and a half hellish years of captivity. The Japanese were convinced he was related to US commander General Macarthur, and so whenever Aidan replied to his name, the guards hit him hard on the head.
When the doctor was transported with 979 other prisoners to Japan in 1944, a rat saved his life.as the creature scuttled across his body one night on the ship,aidan woke up and leapt to his feet in a panic.
At that very moment the ship was hit by an American torpedo. As the missile struck the vessel’s steel hull, everyone who was lying down died instantly from a broken neck.
Aidan escaped a minute before the ship sank, and proceeded to swim between items of wreckage, performing “surface surgery” on colleagues with broken collarbones and legs.
Only 38 of the original 980 prisoners survived.they were picked up by a whaling ship, ditched in Nagasaki and forced to work in a coal mine for 10 cigarettes a week.
Aidan once again showed immense heroism. “Four years ago,” Adrienne recalls, “a woman came into the bar and said, ‘I just wanted to come and meet you. My dad was Larry O’sullivan from County Cork.
‘He was in the Royal Navy, and in the camp in Nagasaki with your dad.
‘His arm was poisoned in the coal mine. The guards said they were going to get a Japanese medical student to amputate his arm with no anaesthetic, just for practice.
‘But he would have died anyway then because he couldn’t work as a slave or earn his keep with just one arm. So your dad persuaded the commander of the camp to let him try and save the arm, which he did.
‘If it hadn’t been for your dad, I would not be here’.”
In early August 1945, when the Japanese saw they were losing the war, they made their captives dig a long trench. The Pows immediately realised they were digging their own grave and would be machine-gunned into it the next day.
But they were rescued by a cataclysmic event. When the air raid sirens blared out on August 9, 1945, the Pows just had time to rush to the shelter they had recently built.
On the day that 70,000 people died as a 10-mile high mushroom cloud erupted over the city, the rudimentary shelter spared their lives.
Aidan recollects that when they came out of the shelter, “There was no camp. It was gone and the day turned to darkness. I couldn’t see any of Nagasaki. I personally thought it was the end of the world.”
The highly dedicated doctor, who had somehow managed to avoid radiation sickness, set up a basic hospital in a nearby mountain cave and saved hundreds of Japanese lives, before he was recaptured.
Six days later, the war ended.
After rescuing Kusuno from the mob, Aidan left Japan. He had lost 7st. He retired from the RAF in 1971 as an Air Commodore, and died in 1995.
Wiping away tears as she stands beside the Nagasaki camp where Aidan was held, Niki says, “There is no way you can understand how he’d feel. Nothing we have experienced would’ve been in any way like this.”
Adrienne adds: “It was three and a half years of my dad’s life. But the fact mankind hasn’t learned from it is the sad thing. It’s still going on in different parts of the world now.”
‘The fact mankind hasn’t learned from it is the sad thing. It’s still going on in other parts of the world now’ ADRIENNE (daughter)
A Doctor’s Sword, PBS America, Monday, July 11, 8.50pm