Part 1
The
character profile that stood out to me the most was Dr. Sasaki. As the only
doctor left in a hospital being over whelmed with sick and injured civilians.
He was instantly faced with the task of bandaging cuts, treating burns, and
caring for heavily injured after going through the tragedy himself. The
combination of these factors can be incredibly overwhelming and would cause
most in his position to fail, but instead of being overwhelmed this young
doctor did what was necessary to save as many lives as possible. One of the
hardest tasks this doctor was faced with though was coping with the fact that
for every one person he saved another would die. He was forced to work without
emotion as seen on page 34, “Dr. Sasaki lost all sense of profession and
stopped working as a skillful surgeon and a sympathetic man; be became an
automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding.”
from man to machine, and from sympathetic to apathetic.
Part 2
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| The blast radius of the A-bomb on Hiroshima. |
In the first chapter of Hiroshima the Hersey describes the city as a fan shaped land mass. This description intrigued me and made me wonder if the geographic shape of the city was part of the reason it was chosen for the bombing. After some researched I found that there were three main reasons as to why the city was chosen to be bombed.
First
was the actual shape of the city and its surrounding. Hiroshima is a low
resting city with mountains on either side creating almost a semi bowl with the
natural water barrier on the other half. Because of this shape the U.S. decided
it would be the place where the A-Bomb would be most effective and destructive.
Next was the large number of military camps in the area. Hiroshima’s location
made it prime for military bases due to its natural sheltering and access to
resources. The final reason Hiroshima was chosen was because it was one of the
few cities that hadn’t been bombed yet during the war, and as a result the city
was able to be used as a measuring device to show how powerful the untested
A-bomb was.
http://www.hiroshima-spirit.jp/en/museum/morgue_e12.html
I thought it was really interesting to find out that Hiroshima was one of the dew siting that hadn't been bombed yet during the war. And also, I feel like a main reason Hiroshima was attacked was because of their military base the have. When you have a place that is well-known for military camps, that would then become a huge target.
ReplyDeleteIf there were a large number of military camps and it was relatively untouched by other bombs it would make it a good target to test the bomb on, however as it was untouched by other military strikes that means it would have had a higher amount of civilians in the area that have not evacuated because they still had their houses to shelter in and so I feel like there may have been more civilian casualties than there should have been just to test the strength of the bomb.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main reasons why I would never want to be a doctor is so I hopefully would not have to make those hard decisions to pass up someone who is badly hurt to help those who are least because they would have a higher chance of surviving. It is amazing how Dr. Sasaki was about to keep it together during all of this. I wonder if his career as a doctor ended afterwards or if it made his passion even stronger. I wonder what type of reward, if any, that he received for his efforts.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to why Hiroshima was chosen. I watched a video recently about this and they mentioned that one of the main reasons was because the main source of military officials was there. I did not know the other two reasons. I hate that one of the reason was because it would be a good 'test subject' so to speak. I also learned that there was one building that still stood pretty close to where the bomb went off. I think it was like a capital, special building of some kind, and today is a memorial building.
The amount of thought put into this plan is truly substantial and I also am happy that they did because the decision to kill so many people is not one to be taken lightly.
ReplyDelete