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Bob Jackson.
AN IT Tralee lecturer will have his acclaimed documentary on an Irish doctor who survived the bombing of Nagasaki, screened tonight (Thursday) on RTE One at 10.10pm.
Bob Jackson – who has been lecturing at the IT Tralee for ten years since 2006 – shot and created a film called ‘A Doctor’s Sword’ which tells the story of how a young doctor from Castletownbere, Aidan McCarthy served in WW2 and who survived the dropping of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki in August 1945 while there as a prisoner of war (POW).
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The documentary had a limited release in cinemas last year and garnered glowing reviews, earning an Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) Award nomination the Best Documentary category earlier this year.
The story tells of how at the end of World War 2, Dr McCarthy was given an ancestral samurai sword by Isao Kumano, who has been in 2nd Lieutenant in command of Fukuoka Camp in Nagasaki. The idea of a such a high ranking officer giving his sword away to someone who had been a POW was seen as an unprecedented and highly honourable gift.
The story piqued the interest of the IT Tralee lecturer who, along with his director Gary Lennon, spent time interviewing Dr McCarthy’s daughters Adrienne and Nicola in an effort to find out more on the origins of the sword.
