Journal Seven: Ruchir Saha

Part One:

The one character that interested me so far reading is Dr. Terfumi Sasaki.  He is an individual that is responsible and always willing to help no matter what.   I like to learn more about someone who likes to save lives and take care of people when necessary.  The quote, “At least ten thousand of the wounded made their way to the best hospital in town…” (Hersey 35), shows how much passion he takes in his job and especially in a professional job as a doctor. Surprisingly he never suffered any side effects from the bombing that took place.  Afterwards, Dr. Sasaki quit working at the Red Cross Hospital since he was terrorized by the way it looked after the vast explosion.  Therefore, he decided practice and perform several surgeries.  Once he got the hang of it, he decided to have his own private clinic or private hospital to be built and have his doctoral career and business there. Unfortunately in 1963, another tragedy strikes and he was close to death by having of his lungs removed after the tragedy.  

Part Two:

I would like to know more on why the planes were called B-29’s during the time and the purpose that these planes served during war. From the information I researched, I found out that the "B" in B-29 was named after the manufacturing company called Boeing in Wichita, Kansas.  The official names for these planes were called the B-29 Super fortress. It was derived from its well-known predecessor, Boeing's B-17. This highly sophisticated aircraft was also the world’s heaviest production plane because of the increases in range, bomb load and defensive requirements. The first B-29 that was made and tested, had a combat mission flown on June 5, 1944. This innovative project to manufacture this weaponry by the US Army Air Corps was approximately at a cost of $3 billion. The B-29’s were designed as a high altitude strategic bomber because they were initially used in the role against the Empire of Japan, but the attacks were somewhat not effective.   The B-29 Enola Bay dropped the “Fat Man” atomic bomb on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the first atomic attack against Hiroshima.