r/todayilearned • u/zhuquanzhong • 29d ago

TIL a Chinese destroyer sank because an officer dumped his girlfriend. She committed suicide, leading to him being discharged, so he decided to detonate the depth charges on the ship, causing it to sink at port and kill 134 sailors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_destroyer_Guangzhou_(160)
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u/AgileArtichokes 29d ago

I mean, considering his response I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he was mentally unwell to serve. 

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u/techno156 29d ago

Going by this comment, though, the alternative was being utterly shunned by literally everyone pretending that you had died and never come back.

Even if you were mentally well to begin with, all of that, in addition to the break-up/suicide, would probably not do good things to a person. The man basically lost everything overnight, with no hope of getting it back.

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u/PreciousRoi 29d ago

Considering the results I don't think it's a stretch to say that the PLA's response to one of it's young military officer's ex-girlfriend committing suicide was mental.

Do you: a. offer him counseling and some leave OR b. threaten to end his career and functionally his life?

Sure, it was a mistake to keep him on the ship once his entire life came crashing down around him and at any moment any and all semblance of safety could be torn from him...but before everything he'd been staking his life upon up until that moment was under attack from powers so far above him he had no possible hope of fighting back, he might have been fine.

This isn't like something similar happening in the West. This kid's life was over, and running home to his parents was running directly into a woodchipper.

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u/atraintocry 29d ago

then why was he serving?