The Mighty Moo: The USS Cowpens in WWII

Editor’s Note: 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 intelligence analyst Nathan Canestaro is “Band of Brothers at sea.” It 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. Below is an excerpt of the book, which is available on Amazon and Kindle.

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The Marianas Turkey Shoot: A Battle to Write Home About

June 19, 1944, was a beautiful day for a battle. The Pacific sunrise put on a magnificent
display that morning, starting with shades of deep red gradually turning to pink and orange over the
azure sea. It was warm and clear with excellent visibility; perfect weather for flying. Down at sea
level, the 9 carriers and 450 planes of the Japanese fleet and 15 carriers and 900 planes of
Spruance’s Task Force 58 were separated by less than four hundred miles of ocean. By the end of
the day these two forces would fight to conclusion the fifth and final fleet battle in history where
the opposing ships never once saw one another. The day’s action was to be bigger than any of
those previous clashes; the twenty-​four carriers at sea on this day were more than the combined
flattops employed in the previous four.

General quarters sounded at 3 a.m., and Cowpens and the rest of the fleet prepared for
action. Hatches and portholes were dogged down, life vests and helmets donned, and all men were
at their battle stations. Down in the VF‑25 ready room, the Moo’s fighter pilots were nervous and
eager, waiting for the enemy to appear. Fighter pilot Don McKinley likened the mood to a locker
room before a big football game— “[nervous] butterflies and little conversation.” Each man was
alone with his thoughts, preoccupied with the battle ahead or wishing that lost comrades and
friends like Bob Price or Papo Parker could be there to fight alongside them. While some pilots on

other carriers relaxed their guard when an attack did not materialize at dawn, the Moo’s fighter
pilots stayed put in the ready room and anxiously waited for the order to fly. “We were ready to
go,” McKinley recalled.

Admiral Mitscher, too, was on guard. Guam was abuzz with enemy activity that morning,
with Hellcats from other carriers downing almost three dozen enemy planes. But it was the radar
tracks of the approaching first wave that convinced him that the long-​awaited Japanese attack was
at hand. At his direction at 10:15 a.m., all fifteen carriers swung into the wind and accelerated to
twenty knots to launch aircraft. Mitscher instructed his FDOs to issue the recall order for the
twenty-​three fighters circling over Guam— with the old circus call of “Hey, Rube!”

While the dozens of Hellcats already in the air on CAP— including those from Cowpens—
streaked toward the enemy, the rest of the flattops launched their ready fighters. The Moo’s pilots’
vigilance paid off; the ship distinguished herself by being the first carrier from Task Force 58 to get
her planes in the air. Only two minutes passed between Mitscher’s order to launch planes and the
first of Cowpens’ Hellcats lifting off the deck. Ed Haley recalled that it was a true scramble, with no
preflight briefing— just the order “Pilots, man your planes.” Haley sprinted up the ladder to the
flight deck, climbed into the first unoccupied Hellcat, and was airborne a few moments later. After
launch, Haley joined up with another Hellcat piloted by Lee Adams, and they turned to the west and
climbed at full throttle.

Don McKinley must have been slightly more fleet of foot than Haley; he was third in line off
the flight deck. He recalled how instructions to the pilots were not to waste time joining up as a
squadron or with designated wingmen. “If any vectors [from the FDO] were given I did not hear
them,” McKinley recalled years after the battle, and described how planes all around him were just
pointing their noses west toward the enemy and “hanging on their propellers” to gain altitude as
fast as possible.

As the planes rushed toward the enemy they formed into groups with whoever was nearby.
As McKinley headed west, another Cowpens Hellcat formed up on his wing, and McKinley was
relieved to see it was one of his roommates, Fred “Stinky” Stieglitz. Haley, McKinley, Stieglitz, and
their wingmen were only a few of the scores of Hellcats leaping off carrier decks across Task Force
58 in those first few minutes, bringing the total number of fighters facing the Japanese to more
than 230.

Eight Hellcats from Lexington’s VF‑15 were the first to join battle at 10:35 a.m., followed by
fighters from Cowpens and others from Bunker Hill, Princeton, and Enterprise minutes later.
Eight Cowpens pilots joined the melee at about twenty thousand feet and within twenty miles of
the task force. “The interception is marvelous,” the Moo’s pilots enthused, “and the next hour is
one huge dogfight, with Jap planes literally falling like flies.”

The air was filled with fighters, and the radios crackled with instructions from the FDOs and chatter from the pilots. The Cowpens’ radar screen was confused with friendly and enemy contacts as the battle devolved into a series of individual dogfights; given the Americans’ greater numbers, often multiple Hellcats were chasing a single Japanese plane. In the swirling melee, the Moo’s pilots became separated and afterward found themselves flying wing on whatever US fighter they could find.

Gaylord Brown and his division were guided to the attack by the Task Group 58.4 FDO, who
brought them within five miles of the enemy and instructed them to “look sharp” when the
Japanese should be in sight. Sure enough, Brownie spotted a formation of enemy planes above and
just off his bow, called out the tally‑ho— the traditional call upon sighting the enemy— and turned
his division to attack.

As Brownie closed in, the group of twenty-​five to thirty enemy aircraft were beginning to
break out of formation. “By this time it seemed there were hundreds of F6Fs in the air,” Brownie
recalled, and under their attack “the enemy formation was scattering. The bombers were diving
away and only the fighters remained at our altitude.” Two Zekes closed in on Brownie’s division as
he entered the fray. Brownie and his wingman, Raffman, turned into the lead plane, and McKinley
and Stieglitz took the second. As soon as Brownie turned into the leader, the enemy plane broke off
and made a climbing turn in an attempt to evade, with Brownie behind and just out of gun range.

Brownie hit his F6F‑5’s water injection for a burst of speed and closed to within two hundred feet.
He fired a long burst from behind and below, knocking pieces off the Zeke. As Brownie pulled away,
Raffman caught up and with his own burst set the Zeke afire, and it plummeted down to the sea.
Both men could still see aircraft below them, and with the broken cloud cover it was difficult
to distinguish between US and Japanese fighters until they drew close. The pair headed back in the
general direction of the task group, when through a break in the clouds Brownie spotted a lone
airplane circling about two miles ahead. Brownie closed in for the attack; as he later explained, “If
one of our planes had gotten separated from its leader, it would have headed for the carriers, and
would not be circling.” Closing in to a mile from the aircraft he confirmed it as a bomb-​carrying Zeke
and jumped on its tail. “I splashed him in flames with one burst,” he recalled.

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As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.