Battlefield Pacific: Book Four of the Red Storm Series by Watson Miranda & Rosone James

Author:Watson, Miranda & Rosone, James [Watson, Miranda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

Pyrrhic Victory

Washington, D.C.

White House

“This is great news, Jim. We defeated the Chinese Navy and sank their fleet!” the President exclaimed jovially.

Castle was a bit more subdued. “Yes, Mr. President. As of three hours ago, our Allied fleet sank the last of the Chinese warships in the South China Sea. We’ve officially cleared the waterways around the Philippines, Taiwan, and most of the South China Sea for the next phase of our operations. However, it was a pyrrhic victory, Mr. President.”

The President went from elated to a bit more somber. While the Allies had defeated the Chinese naval forces in the Pacific, it had come at a terrible cost in lives, treasure, and ships.

McMillian, the National Security Advisor, chimed in, “What was the finally tally on our losses, Jim?”

The SecDef sighed as he walked around the couch in the Oval Office and took a seat opposite McMillian. He then opened his folder and placed his reading glasses on the bridge of his nose as he began to look over the numbers.

“We lost the Nimitz , and the Eisenhower was also taken out of commission. The Stennis took a number of missile hits but is still operational; however, she’ll need a lot of repairs once she returns to port. The Japanese lost two of their light carriers, and a third was heavily damaged. Those are just the carrier losses.”

He paused for a second to let that sink in. “We also lost seven Ticonderoga guided-missile cruisers, twenty-three Arleigh Burke destroyers, two Virginia -class attack submarines and four Los Angeles attack submarines…All told, 13,000 sailors lost their lives, and roughly 14,000 were injured. We won the battle, Mr. President, but it has largely devastated our Navy. It’ll take us decades to replace the number of ships lost, let alone reach our original goal of a 600-ship Navy. The loss of the Nimitz makes three carriers that have been completely destroyed and three more that will need to be taken out of action due to battle damage.”

Gates sat back on the couch as the gravity of what the SecDef said began to set in. In less than a year, the Navy had lost nearly one-third of their vessels, with very little chance of replacing them before this war would be over. However, what really tore at the President was the loss of life. This was a horrific loss for the Navy and their country.

“What do we do next?” asked Gates.

“We continue to prosecute the war, Mr. President,” Castle answered. “We will work to isolate the enemy and systematically destroy his will to fight. As terrible as our losses are, the Chinese suffered worse, and those losses aren’t going to be hidden from their public. In the Philippines and Taiwan, we’ll move to interdict their supply ships and systematically destroy their capability to defend the islands until our Marines are ready to move forward with their invasion.”

Pausing for a second, the SecDef took his reading glasses off and placed them on the table. “This is going to be a long war, Mr.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.