Meet the Cork doctor who survived an atomic bomb

A biography which details the extraordinary story of a West Cork doctor who fought in the Second World War and who survived the atomic bomb drop at Nagasaki is to be launched next weekend.

‘There then followed a blue flash accompanied by a very bright magnesium-type flare ... Then came a frighteningly loud but rather flat explosion which was followed by a blast of hot air … All this was followed by eerie silence.’

That’s how Aidan MacCarthy had described the dropping of the atomic bomb, just over a mile away from his makeshift shelter in the Mitsubishi POW camp.