By Aidan McCarthy. Published by Grub Street (new edition 2006). Held in the Rita Mayne Collection, Hewitson Library, Knox College, Dunedin. Reviewed by Simon Rae 

Aidan MacCarthy was an Irish national serving in the RAF, a POW literally digging his own grave — the Japanese having decided to kill all POWs if their homeland was invaded. Captured in Java, he had suffered imprisonment and abuse, and had been torpedoed at sea on the dangerous voyage from Java for slave labour in Japan. A Doctor’s War, Aidan MacCarthy’s account of his experiences, is compelling reading as the horror of absolute warfare is woven through with the author’s professional observations and spiritual reflections. In retirement he affirmed, “Even now I thank God for the miracle of being alive. I also thank God for the [Irish] villagers who prayed for me.” As senior British officer in his camp MacCarthy had to try to bring some order into the chaos of both Japanese and allied personnel for whom the structures of authority and oppression had suddenly disappeared. He was involved in the mass cremations of the victims of the bombing. He had to decide what to do with the urns of dead Commonwealth POWs deposited in the crypt of the Catholic cathedral and marshal allied prisoners for repatriation. His account of his own slow recovery from long and abusive imprisonment is objective, and moving.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 220, October 2017: