The THREE DRAGONS

Apra Harbor, Guam

[I am sitting with Captain of the USS SSN 24 SEA DRAGON, the then Captain of the USS Chicago SSN 721, at a Starbucks overlooking the Apra Harbor. My first next question about his tripple kill south of Hong Kong, the death of the Red Chinese carrier Shandong. Just lucky or was it skill?]

“It was both. The USS Sea Dragon has a VERY SKILLED crew. The PLAN admiral thought he had made it home, he had avoided the Allied fleets pursuing him to that point by heading north to Hong Kong instead of the PRC naval ports in south. Although all their ships were damaged, they were still able to do 20knots. He thought he could out run the allied submarines and make it into port. The Sea Wolf class however was designed specifically to penetrate enemy "bastion areas" where the enemy thought they were safe and sink their ships. Even in "Silent running once we  detected the damaged carrier we were able to take down the carrier and his two escorts..”

[“Many are comparing you to Richard O'Kane, the WW2 submarine ace that had the cribbage board you mentioned earlier”]

“Richard “Dick” O’Kane, is still the greatest American submarine Ace to date. I think a better comparison would be Lieutenant Commander Otto Weddigen of the Imperial German Navy of World War One. Otto caught three British cruisers off their guard in the English Channel and sent them to the bottom. That's probably a better comparison."

[“So you did get lucky?”]

Well, as I said it was more a combination of the two. My boat and my crew preformed with true excellence. The Red Chinese just didn't get a solid contact on my boat, as I said I was running silent the whole time. They were either tired, had damaged equipment, or just unlucky. We just picked them off one at a time.

[“Did you know that a coastal ferry full of evacuees and was just 9 miles away with multiple passengers filming the entire thing? With much of the worlds internet just coming back online after the Chinese, and some say Russian and Iranian cyber attacks finally being controlled, your actions went world wide in minutes. The fact that the USN could confirm that it was one of our own submarines that did the deed just hours later had a profound effect for the moral on all sides”]

"We were aware of the coastal traffic. We didn't want to hit any civilians. As for our effect on the course of the war and morale? Hard to tell. We were winning by the end of May and everyone on the ground and at sea in Asia at that point knew it.

[“Speaking of avoiding civilian targets, the media played up the fact that you used all torpedoes and none of your self targeting missiles. It made a BIG contrast to the arbitrary missile assaults on Taiwan's cities. Is this why you decided against missiles, or are you just "Old School?"]

Torpedoes are still a  submarine’s best weapon, especially when one wants to go for stealth. Missiles give away your position too easily.

[“Your boat's actions are accredited with breaking the morale of the PRC troops in Kaohsiung. The PLA troops there surrendered just one week later. A week after that Xi in Beijing had to sue for peace as the PRC splintered into a full civil war as the disaster of his and the Party's actions in Taiwan and the South China Sea finally reached the Chinese people. Now six months later Red China is gone and there is the "Three Dragons"; Southern Canton, Eastern Coastal Middle China, and the Communists still controlling Beijing, Manchuria and western China. Your considered the "straw " that broke the Red Dragon's back.]

It wasn’t just our boat. When your an "Absolute Dictator" like Xi and his Communist Party, everyone knows who's in charge. AND they one knows who to blame when things go wrong. XI was in trouble for over a year before the war with the way he handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Lying about the real death numbers, which were actually in the millions. He saw political unrest in the USA as an opportunity to turn things around by doing something the Reds had been promising their people for 70 years, take Taiwan. It failed because the PRC underestimated democracies like the USA and Taiwan. He failed because the PRC didn't really have any real friends. When you fail BIG as a dictator, there is no transfer of power, clean or messy as it happens in democracies. When you fail BIG as a dictator, its ALL over....