THE MIGHTY MOO

THE MIGHTY MOO is the tale of how a scrappy little World War II aircraft carrier and its untested crew earned a distinguished combat record and beat incredible odds to earn the 12 battle stars in the Pacific.

The year was 1942, and the US Navy had a problem - it was running out of aircraft carriers. After inflicting grievous losses against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese advanced unopposed across Southeast Asia. Aircraft carriers were the US Navy's primary offensive weapons in these campaigns, but one after another they were lost in battle. What the Navy needed was something that could fill the gap until the larger ships they were building arrived. These stopgap ships would have to be built quickly from available resources but also needed to be fast and capable enough to keep up with the full-sized carriers on their long forays across the Pacific. Each of these ships has its own story to tell, but the fourth, the USS Cowpens - affectionately known to her crew as "The Mighty Moo" - was especially noteworthy. She started her career as a jinx ship, beset by accidents and bad luck, and often edged out for prestigious missions. But she found her stride in battle, earning a distinguished combat record. Cowpens' virtue was her endurance and the dogged determination of her crew. Despite only 26 months of wartime service, she spent more time in combat and earned more battle stars - 12 total - than any of her sister ships, and more than most of the larger Essexes. THE MIGHTY MOO is a biography of a single warship in World War II, as told through the voices of its crew - a "Band of Brothers at sea." The book explains how its second-string officers and crew became unlikely heroes, earning a distinguished combat record and the singular honor of being the only US aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay to witness the Japanese surrender in 1945. It will also examine how, long after the war, the crew formed bonds with the ship's tiny namesake town in South Carolina, which still holds a festival every year to honor their service. Nathan Canestaro is a professional intelligence officer whose research on his grandfather's service in World War II led to a decade- long effort to uncover the story of Cowpens and her crew. Currently on assignment to the National Intelligence Council, Nathan has twenty-five years of experience writing about military operations for policymakers in the US government. He has graduate degrees from the University of Tennessee, Georgetown, and Yale, and lives outside Washington, DC, with his family.