The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Mighty Moo: The USS Cowpens and Her Epic World War II Journey from Jinx Ship to the Navy’s First Carrier into Tokyo Bay by Nathan Canestaro

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

The Mighty Moo: The USS Cowpens and Her Epic World War II Journey from Jinx Ship to the Navy’s First Carrier into Tokyo Bay by Nathan Canestaro https://amzn.to/3xkqDcQ 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 12 battle stars in the Pacific. The USS Cowpens and her crew weren’t your typical heroes. She was a flattop that the US Navy initially didn’t want, with a captain nearly scapegoated for the loss of his last command, pilots who self-trained on the planes they would fly into combat, and sailors that had been in uniform barely longer than the ship had been afloat. Despite their humble origins, Cowpens and her band of second-string reservists and citizen sailors served with distinction, fighting in nearly every major carrier operation from 1943 to 1945, including the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf. Together they faced a deadly typhoon that brought the ship to the verge of capsizing, and at war’s end there was only one US aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay to witness the Japanese surrender—The Mighty Moo. In the years to follow, Cowpens’ service has become the wellspring for a remarkable modern tradition, both within the US Navy and the small Southern town that still celebrates her legacy with a festival every year. The Mighty Moo is a biography of a World War II aircraft carrier as told through the voices of its heroic crew—a “Band of Brothers at sea.”

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. There you go. The Iron Lady sings it. That makes it bloody official. Welcome to the big show, as always.

For the show to your family, friends, and relatives, tell them to join us at Goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfast, LinkedIn.com, 4chesschrisfast. Chris Foss won the TikTokity and all those crazy places on the internet if we can ever get our soundboard working right here this morning. Anyway, we certainly appreciate you guys being here. We have an amazing author. As always, we only allow amazing authors on the show we vet them they have to do like you know that thing some people say it's a special test where you do the cow tv moo thing i don't know you may have heard it in politics but i'm not going to reference it yeah we make them do that test so they have to

identify like animals and i don't know add two plus plus two. And then we allow them on the show. He is the author of the latest book. I made him sound really like, I don't know. He's just barely phoning it in on the IQ level. But I assure you, this gentleman has an IQ of at least 300. He's the author of the newest book, The Mighty Moo, the USS Cowpens and her epic world war ii journey from jinx ship to the navy's first carrier into tokyo bay comes out june 11th 2024 nathan canestro because let me get that right nathan canestaro is on the show today did i get that right nathan you got it and thank you for

having me it's great to be here thanks for coming we certainly appreciate you and now be quiet while i read your bio i'm just kidding so nathan is a professional intelligence officer whose research he's just so excited to be here i can't he can't help it whose research on his grandfather's service in world war ii led to a decade-long uh effort to uncover the story of the uss cowpens and its crew. Currently on assignment to the National Intelligence Council, he has 25 years of experience writing about military operations for policymakers in the U.S. government. He has graduate degrees from the University of Tennessee, Georgetown, and Yale, and lives outside of Washington, D.C.

See, I told you this guy is gosh darn smart. Welcome to the show, Nathan. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for having me. I've got you rolling. All right, give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the webs? Is it the MightyMu.com? Right.

The other website is NathanCanistero.com. I'm on Twitter. All one word, Nathan Canistero. But if you get on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Target or Walmart, any of the big booksellers and just search the Mighty Mu, you'll find the book. I think you should buy the domain moo.com.

I think that'd be funny. It might be expensive, though. Check and see if somebody's already got that one, but that's a good point. Yeah, there's probably some milk companies got that. So speaking of milk, let's drink up your latest book. What the hell is that about? The Mighty Moo.

Give us the 30,000 overview of what's inside. Sure. So I started researching this book to find out about my grandfather's service in World War II. And he was a tail gunner on a torpedo bomber in the Pacific and served aboard a light aircraft carrier called the USS Cowpens. Now, my grandfather was a lot like many men from his generation. He didn't like to talk about the war. You saw a lot of action. It was traumatic. When he came home, he didn't like to talk about the war. It was, you saw a lot of action. It was traumatic.

When he came home, he wanted to put it behind him, but every so often he kind of hint at things that had, that had happened to him. And for a guy like me, you know, I'm interested in World War II history and grew up with Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. That was like catnip, you know, that there was a grandpa had a story there and it, and he wasn't going to tell it to me. So after he passed in 2010, I decided to go looking into it, see what I could find out on my own.

And I found this incredible underdog story about about his ship and his crew. So it was a ship that the Navy initially didn't want with a captain that had nearly been scapegoated for the loss of his last command. The crew had been in uniform barely longer than the ship had been afloat. The pilots self-trained on the planes they'd fly into battle. And the first few months that she was in service, she had a terrible sort of string of bad luck as jinx. And yet, despite all these problems, the ship that nobody expected much from, she earned a distinguished combat record, survived a deadly typhoon,

and ended up the only U.S. aircraft carrier in Tokyo Bay to see the Japanese surrender. Wow. Yeah. Is that because so many of them have been destroyed with Pearl Harbor in the war? Actually, almost exactly the opposite. Now we know when the Japanese surrendered that they meant it, but at the time, a lot of people didn't trust them. Admiral Halsey thought the whole thing might be a trap. It's a trap. Yeah, they would sort of invite the Americans in, say they're going to surrender, and then, you know, attack them, double-cross them. The Kaffins was essentially sent in because she was expendable.

Admiral Halsey wanted all the big carriers out at sea where they'd be safe. You know, if we lose the Kaffins, it'll be okay. You had to watch those tricky pre-war Japanese. CIA said pre-war Japanese. The how I said pre-war Japanese? The post-war Japanese are wonderful people. You know, these are guys who lived through Pearl Harbor. That's true. They were pretty suspicious.

Pretty tricky, the Pearl Harbor on us. Yeah. They pulled that. You know, I can see why there was maybe some issues with trust. Yeah. So I'd never heard of the USS Cowpens. When I was a kid, I used to read a lot of books and i had i'd buy the models of all the stuff and i'd read about eisenhower and and general macarthur

and all the other great generals and stuff and then so where does the uss cow pens where does that name come from is it just like old mcdonald's farm or something well at the time aircraft carriers were named after battles and the battle of the cowpens was a revolutionary war era battle in upstate south carolina and it was one of the finest tactical victories of the war set the stage for yorktown but it's kind of obscure you know it's not like yorktown or saratoga or, you know, any of the others. And it took this little town. There is a place called Cowpin, South Carolina, that's named after the battle. They sent President Roosevelt a postcard in 1942 and said, hey, can you name a carrier

after our battle? And the rest is history. Wow. How come it wasn't like, how come it's been kind of obscured or it seems to have been obscured? It wasn't. The simplest answer is it was not a regular carrier. When you think about World War II carriers, you think about the big ones,

like the Intrepid in New York City or Yorktown or any of the others. But the thing is, a lot of people forget how badly things were going for the United States in the first year of the war. We started with six aircraft carriers. And by the end of 42, four had been sunk in battle. Oh, wow. So we were running out of flattops in a hurry. And President Roosevelt, even before the war, was worried that we didn't have enough.

So he tried to get the Navy to take some ships that were already under construction, these light cruisers. So they're about 40% of the size of a big carrier and put a flat top on them. So the flight deck. And the Navy didn't like this idea. They liked their big, expensive platforms. And FDR really basically had to force them into it. They built nine of these little ships. And they were just a stopgap measure in between the ships that they'd lost at the beginning of the war and then the big essexes that were coming along later honestly if if they hadn't the u.s hadn't been

doing as badly as they had they probably wouldn't have made them at all so the fact that they're kind of now overlooked is is not surprising so they went from they had six to be in a war and they went down to they lost four so they were down to two basically wow that's the situation was so desperate there for a while that we actually asked the Brits if they could loan us an aircraft carrier for 90 days. They sent the Invincible into the Pacific, so we could put Enterprise into the shipyard

to patch up our battle moves. It was pretty touch and go there for a while. You know what we weren't out of, though? What's that? Nuclear bombs. A little later in the day, yeah. weren't out of though what's that nuclear bombs yeah we're a little shy on uh aircraft carriers but plenty of nuclear bombs that's a hiroshima joke folks i think i'm gonna get hate mail after that anyway guys so give us a little bit of your background tell us a little bit about your

grandfather you did you were you trying to pry this out of him all these years and you just couldn't get out of them? You were asking everybody. And then what made you get into the business you're in? You're obviously writing for the government and probably doing secret stuff you can't tell us about without murdering us in a secret prison in Poland or something. Hardly. Grandpa was a very introspective guy. He was not the sort of guy that we would want to draw attention to himself. And he just didn't talk about it. He came home, he had got married, had five kids,

became a carpenter in upstate New York. And, you know, that was, that was his life. And he would, he would hint about a few things. He talked about the typhoon. We can get about, get into that in a second. And, but oftentimes when he told stories, they were humorous or funny, you know, he was trying to emphasize the light, the light parts of the experience. But he did see a lot of action. And, you know, when he passed, the Navy is very good at its record keeping. So there was a huge pile of documents, you know, once you start looking for it. And then I started accumulating letters and diaries and things like that, which have helped me sort of piece the story together. And, you know, you asked a little bit about my job. You know, being an intelligence officer is like being a historian where you don't know the ending. You know, with it's, say, for instance,

like D-Day, you know, a historian will look at D-Day and say, they won, they didn't. Now go back and figure out how it is that they did well. And, you know, in my job, we do the opposite. So with history, it's a nice change to sort of be able to know how the story ends and kind of be able to work back from there. There you go. So they saw a lot of action in the Pacific there then? Yes. Yeah. I did too in the Pacific.

I saw a lot of action, but it was mostly on my trip to Thailand. Not sure what that means. Anyway, so tell us about this typhoon thing. Yeah. December 1944. Nice transition there, by the way. General MacArthur just invaded Leyte, one of the islands in the Philippines, and Kaupins and the fleet were sailing there to help him out. And meteorology wasn't in the 40s what it is today. You have no satellite imagery. You don't know where the storms are. And they sailed right into the teeth of an enormous typhoon. And this is one of the things about the ship you know because it was never really intended

to be a carrier it was narrow and tall had a very high center of gravity so it was a little shall we say tippy in bad weather uh and you go sailing into a storm with 70 and 90 foot waves and winds of 100 to 120 knots the ship is rolling back and forth. There was a roll meter on the bridge and it went 45 degrees to either side. And apparently the needle was roll over to the pin at 45 degrees and bounce and then swing back the other direction and then bounce on that needle. So this went on for hours. I want to be in dinner about that time. The captain got on the PA and said, anyone who is not on duty,

get into your bunks and tie yourself in. People were, you know, walking on the PA and said, anyone who is not on duty, get into your bunks and tie yourself in. Tie yourself in. People are walking on the walls. The ship is tilting so much and falling and getting hurt. You know what's really bad is if you're walking on the roof. That's usually not a good sign. That's a whole Poseidon thing right there. That's another movie.

It's a different book. Didn't they remake that not long ago? I think they did, and it was probably awful you can't remake certain movies nah no the original is always better yeah but that you know the edge of the flight deck was dipping into the ocean that's the flight deck 70 feet above the water and average average seas and apparently on the bridge they could reach out and touch the waves and then down in the magazine the bombs broke loose they were rolling across the floor 100 or 500 and a thousand pound bombs just sort of bouncing like

tennis balls. I mean, just a really, really close call. And elsewhere in the fleet, three destroyers capsized and sunk, killed almost 800 guys. Oh, no. So it was, Grandpa never talked about the combat, but he did talk about the storm, and he was terrified, and I think

almost everybody aboard was. Wow. Yeah, I mean, if it's pitching that far back and forth i mean that's that's just crazy but as long as you're not walking on the roof things are fine you might be walking on the walls though right at that point it's bad yeah i don't think we're supposed to be this far over folks but yeah you don't want to be see you don't have seasickness issues on on that ride there you go that's that's why i stay on land folks i don't i don't do cruises i although there were some times in vegas where i drank enough to where my needle was going all the way over and i was probably walking on the walls

but you know advised not to leave the bar while it is in motion yeah judge says i can't do that anymore anyway what are some other tease outs you want to tease out of the book that people should know to get them to pick it up? One of the things I like most about researching the book is finding some of these fascinating personalities. And one of them was a guy by the name of Clem Craig. And Clem was the Cowpens' greatest fighter ace. And he finished the war with 12.5 aerial kills and two Navy crosses, which is a pretty good record. But he was an amazing shot with his of the

guns on his fighter aircraft that the f6 hellcat f6f hellcat you gotta remember these things only had 400 rounds for each of their guns so that's about 30 seconds of fire and he had one mission where he shoots down four aircraft in one mission and another one where he shoots down five yeah so he's averaging five to six seconds of shooting to shoot down an enemy fighter that's pretty amazing marksmanship for you know in the middle of a dog fight yeah that is pretty good you're in the air too yeah it's moving all around it's like you have a static sort of thing yeah he went on to fly another 30 missions in korea so a really really remarkable guy that's the guy you want on your Modern Warfare 3 team.

He was a pretty intense customer. He's a very, you know, kind of stern, devoted to duty sort of guy. Those guys back then were salty, man. They were salt of the earth people, man. They really were. You know, nowadays, you know, the kids are like, I got a hangnail. I can't go on the aircraft carrier. Well, if you want to talk endurance i should tell you about a guy by the name of bob price bob was the commander of their first fighter

squadron and he was shot down over the pacific attacking a japanese convoy in june of 44 and they saw him alive in the water in his raft and he waved back at them you know his wingmen were circling overhead say i'm okay i'm fine and so they came back to rescue him and they couldn't find him. So they hadn't accounted for his drift on the currents. They staged two rescue missions, never found the guy. And 10 days later, one of his buddies on another carrier had this dream that Bob Price was out there in the Pacific floating in his raft waiting for someone to pick him up. So he went and he talked to his admiral, a guy by the name of Jocko Clark. And Jocko didn't think he was nuts.

He says, you know, let's see where he might be. So they sat down with a map and calculated the currents and said, if he's still alive, he's probably over here. And it was 100 miles out of their way. So they went, they made a 100-mile detour. Who should they find in his life raft after 11 days of bug bites? What about your assholes to wait 10 days? Guy lost 30 pounds in 11 days.

I think I need to go on that diet. That sounds like. I don't recommend it. Yeah. And as long as I can. Well, I was going to say as long as I could take sunscreen, but I might drink the sunscreen. So that might be bad. Yeah.

You don't want to drink that seawater. So there you go. I mean, this sounds like a lot of fun you're going to bring back a ship i i swear to god when i was a kid i was building like all the all the ships you know the model ships and then i would read about eisenhower and and then the battle of midway and like i was really enthralled with all that stuff and i build the fighter planes and what was the other book i read the one the one about John F. Kennedy when he was in the war with the PT boats. PT 109. Yeah.

Yeah. I was just obsessed with the whole, I don't know why. I just loved it. That's kind of what you did. You know, it was us against the USSR back then, instead of where we're like trying to embrace them now,

become them. And it was kind of a different time. It was a different time. Where they used to be our enemies, at least for certain parties. Anyway, yeah, so I loved this whole thing. And it was such an interesting time because there's a strategy of it all. Yes.

You know? And, you know, we really got, you know, destroyed with Pearl Harbor. I mean, it was a, and we were lucky on a few fronts that some things didn't go as bad as they were, but it could have been worse. But yeah, they did a good number on us. But we came back as Americans. We kicked ass and took names, but thankfully we never ran out of nuclear bombs. Well, it was a long haul.

I mean, 41 to 45, it wasn't easy. There were a lot of tough battles along the way. And if you were, you know, one of the reasons I wrote the book, you know, is trying to figure out, like, you know, my grandfather, he's a 22-year-old kid from upstate New York. He's never been anywhere. You know, he's never been outside of his home region. You know, that was pretty common in those days. You don't travel like you do today. You know, what was it like for him?

You know, what was the ship like, the food, the living conditions? He and 1,400 of his closest friends are packed into this metal can in the middle of the South Pacific with no air conditioning. It was not always a pleasant experience. The only recreation at times was they'd let them off in these little islands in the middle of nowhere and say, okay, everybody gets two beers and you can go swimming. Yeah. Do they look familiar, how are they out there? No, I'm just kidding. I think that, you know, one of the, one of the missions, you make the joke. One of the missions they were going on, there's a place called truck and it was an island that the Japanese had made into one of their fortresses. And there was all these crazy rumors about, about this island. And one of them

was that Amelia Earhart, she was shot down trying to take intelligence pictures of truck of course not true but you know that was you know we know a lot about the pacific right now but at the time some of these places were just total mysteries they didn't know what was there what it was like you know that's not like you take overhead pictures aerial pictures like you know google google earth like you can today yeah i. I mean, didn't they find like one or two Japanese soldiers who for like 30 years stayed on those islands and they thought they were still fighting? I think it was in Saipan. Yeah, some of those guys were coming out of caves until the 1970s.

Yeah, that's crazy. They were pretty determined adversaries. They were. I mean, the Japanese, I mean, that was the reason we had to nuke them is they were kamikazes. I remember studying the kamikaze missions, reading about the kamikaze fighters. Those boys were committed over there, and they were kidding around.

I'm glad we all worked it out and we all learned to get along, at least on that side of the globe. Technically, Russia's on that side of the globe. So there you go. So give people a final pitch out, final thoughts as we go out to pick up the book. The timing on this is great in that we're coming up on Father's Day and a lot of people have relatives that served in World War II. Something like 60% of Americans of military age were in the military in some capacity.

So for folks, if you like World War II history or you have a relative who served, I think this is a great tribute for Father's Day or Memorial Day that has just passed. These stories are important. If you don't kind of dig into your own family history and learn what sort of part your family had in the big drama, they get lost. So this was my effort to give that tribute to my granddad there you go just right after the battle of battle of normandy recognition 80 years i think it was or 70 years 80 yeah june was a big month you know they capture d-day you had d-day you'd capture a rome and then the battle of the marianas turkey shoot all in june 44 there you go back when we used to kick ass and take names. And we were always out of bubble gum.

There's the reference. So thanks very much for coming on the show. I think this is awesome, man. The Mighty Moo. I thought I knew of all the different things that were in that theater, but now I just learned something new. And I'm also hungry for milk. So this show

has been brought to you by milk the american dairy council it makes some people fart like me so thank you very much nathan we get your.com so people find you on the interwebs yeah at nathan canistero and the service formerly known as twitter and then nathan canistero.com on the web and then amazon barnes and noble any booksellers you search the mighty moo you'll find it there you go twitter formerlymoo.com on the web. And then Amazon, Barnes & Noble, any booksellers, you search The Mighty Moo, you'll find it. There you go. Twitter, formerly Twitter, x.com. Coming to Bankruptcy Court near you.

Thank you very much, Nathan, for coming on the show. Order the book wherever fine books are sold, folks. June 11, 2024. The Mighty Moo. Moo. I feel like I should have to say the do the sound bite on that. The Mighty Moo. The U.S. cow pens in her epic World War II journey

from jinx ship to the Navy's first carrier into Tokyo Bay. do the soundbite on that. The Mighty Moo, the U.S. Cowpens in her epic World War II journey from Jink Ship to the Navy's first carrier into Tokyo Bay. Thanks to everyone for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time or else. Thank you. There you go.