A Light Carrier’s War

 

USS Cowpens was one of nine light aircraft carriers in the United States Navy during World War II. Built on cruiser hulls, these ships were smaller than the fleet carriers the Navy preferred. Yet Cowpens and its sisters could be completed quickly, providing extra fast carriers quickly, before the larger Essex-class fleet carriers could enter service.

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, tells the story of Cowpens during World War II. It shows how a ship, initially unwanted by the US Navy, made a major contribution towards victory in the Pacific.

It was built because of an emergency. In 1942 the US Navy was losing fast carriers faster than they could be replaced. A pre-war proposal existed to convert Cleveland-class light cruisers into light aircraft carriers. It had been rejected because the resulting carriers would, at 14,000 tons, be too small to field a full air group. The upcoming 35,000-ton Essex class would do the job better. But carriers were needed quickly, so the Navy ordered nine light carriers, including Cowpens. All were delivered within 22 months.  The first was commissioned in January 1943.

Canestaro, whose grandfather served aboard Cowpens, follows what happened.  He shows how the Cowpens was completed, and entered service with a green crew. The captain and a few of the senior officers and petty officers were regular navies, but most of the crew were reserve officers, reservists, and wartime recruits.

Canestaro shows how they came together to form a team. Initially there were rocks and shoals, including a grounding incident. Yet by the time it reached the Pacific, Cowpens had coalesced into an effective unit. The crew even gave it the whimsical nickname “The Mighty Moo,” playing off the cow part of Cowpens. It participated in virtually every major Pacific campaign from the Wake Island strikes in October 1943 through the final carrier strikes on Japan in July 1945.

The Mighty Moo tells a Cinderella story. It shows how the ship and its crew rose from an unpromising start to become an integral part of the US Navy’s Fast Carrier Force. It may have played a supporting role, but its role was crucial regardless. More, it is an intensely personal story, one that shows the stresses men face in both warfare and at sea.

“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, Grand Central Publishing, 2024, 416 pages, $35.00 (Hardcover), $16.99 (Ebook), $24.50 (Audiobook)

This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.

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  1. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    The story of the US industrial response to Pearl Harbor is almost unbelievable. Not just an exponential increase in carriers but tens of thousands of ships, planes, tanks and all the fuel and supplies needed.  

    My drill sergeant back when I was trained in the last century, opined in  bull session on the last day of training that he liked the draft because it was more likely to produce soldiers who thought of war as a problem to be solved so as to return to normal life rather than a career in a bureaucracy. That men would quickly figure out how best to operate a small seaborne city like Cowpens and deliver ordnance effectively and carry the war into Tokyo Bay exemplified that ideal attitude.

    I wonder if we could ever do that again if we needed to.

    • #1
  2. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Old Bathos (View Comment):
    The story of the US industrial response to Pearl Harbor is almost unbelievable. Not just an exponential increase in carriers but tens of thousands of ships, planes, tanks and all the fuel and supplies needed.  

    US Aircraft Production

    Year

    Aircraft Produced

    1935

    2,141

    1936

    2,500

    1937

    2,800

    1938

    3,000

    1939

    3,251

    1940

    6,086

    1941

    26,277

    1942

    47,836

    1943

    85,898

    1944

    96,318

    1945

    49,761

    • #2
  3. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    This one has been on my “need to read” book list for a bit now.

    • #3
  4. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    I have this book.  It’s terrible.  It is only barely about the named ship, it’s mostly just boring anecdotes about the navy back in the day, and blasé explanations of the navy and the 1940’s.  

    I only got part way through.  

    If you know almost nothing about history, if you know almost nothing about the US Navy, if you know almost nothing about the world in general, then maybe you’ll like this book.  I found it tedious and boring.

    • #4
  5. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Percival (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):
    The story of the US industrial response to Pearl Harbor is almost unbelievable. Not just an exponential increase in carriers but tens of thousands of ships, planes, tanks and all the fuel and supplies needed.

    US Aircraft Production

    Year

    Aircraft Produced

    1935

    2,141

    1936

    2,500

    1937

    2,800

    1938

    3,000

    1939

    3,251

    1940

    6,086

    1941

    26,277

    1942

    47,836

    1943

    85,898

    1944

    96,318

    1945

    49,761

    I think it’s more interesting to look at how they did aircraft maintenance.  

    When the war started, aircraft carriers kept spares lashed to the over head of the hangar bays and they fixed planes that broke and tried to get them flying again.  Spare parts were kept on hand or delivered as needed.

    In phase two, they had auxiliary ships that had spare aircraft.  When a bird was beyond a quick fix, they would fly it or barge it (if not air worthy) over to a repair ship who would send a replacement plane.  

    In phase three, if a plane was broken too badly to quickly fix, they would throw it over board and get a new one flown aboard to replace it.  The carrier air wing was always kept at full strength and they stopped bothering with spare parts, and just replaced the entire aircraft.  

    Planes were a lot cheaper back then than today, but that’s still pretty amazing.

    • #5
  6. Sisyphus Member
    Sisyphus
    @Sisyphus

    Skyler (View Comment):

    I have this book. It’s terrible. It is only barely about the named ship, it’s mostly just boring anecdotes about the navy back in the day, and blasé explanations of the navy and the 1940’s.

    I only got part way through.

    If you know almost nothing about history, if you know almost nothing about the US Navy, if you know almost nothing about the world in general, then maybe you’ll like this book. I found it tedious and boring.

    One of the most fascinating things I have found were digitized back issues of service periodicals. Reading about swim rescues by seamen in the 20s and 30s were surprisingly amusing. Very slim by modern standards, nothing that could possibly offend a seaman, an admiral, a citizen, or a congresscritter. That was on a service network, but they might be available publicly.

    • #6
  7. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Skyler (View Comment):
    If you know almost nothing about history, if you know almost nothing about the US Navy, if you know almost nothing about the world in general, then maybe you’ll like this book.  I found it tedious and boring.

    Thank you for your opinion.  I certainly know something about history, the US Navy, and the world in general. I read this book and reviewed it.  Since I only review books I feel are worth recommending to others we will have to agree to disagree. Can you name any other books you find tedious and boring? I am always looking for a good read. Other books you rank alongside this one are worth investigating. You might be right in your judgement next time.  Might. 

    • #7
  8. mildlyo Member
    mildlyo
    @mildlyo

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    My drill sergeant back when I was trained in the last century, opined in bull session on the last day of training that he liked the draft because it was more likely to produce soldiers who thought of war as a problem to be solved so as to return to normal life rather than a career in a bureaucracy.

    I am so going to steal this quote 

    • #8
  9. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):
    If you know almost nothing about history, if you know almost nothing about the US Navy, if you know almost nothing about the world in general, then maybe you’ll like this book. I found it tedious and boring.

    Thank you for your opinion. I certainly know something about history, the US Navy, and the world in general. I read this book and reviewed it. Since I only review books I feel are worth recommending to others we will have to agree to disagree. Can you name any other books you find tedious and boring? I am always looking for a good read. Other books you rank alongside this one are worth investigating. You might be right in your judgement next time. Might.

    Hmm.  The only book that I stopped reading, and tore the book in half was “Killer Angels” because it is ahistorical and an insult to the participants in the battle of Gettysburg.  

    On second thought, I guess “tedious and boring” were not quite the right words for the Moo book.  Infantile, tedious, boring, and a waste of my time are probably more accurate.

    And there’s another book by Victor Davis Hanson that is completely unreadable, some kind of history and I won’t bother look it up.  The book starts off with too many characters not introduced sufficiently and you don’t even know who the book is following and it just isn’t worth the time to figure out.  Nice guy, one hit wonder in the history department, and otherwise doesn’t have much to say.  I generally think he is over rated.

    • #9
  10. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):
    If you know almost nothing about history, if you know almost nothing about the US Navy, if you know almost nothing about the world in general, then maybe you’ll like this book. I found it tedious and boring.

    Thank you for your opinion. I certainly know something about history, the US Navy, and the world in general. I read this book and reviewed it. Since I only review books I feel are worth recommending to others we will have to agree to disagree. Can you name any other books you find tedious and boring? I am always looking for a good read. Other books you rank alongside this one are worth investigating. You might be right in your judgement next time. Might.

    Hmm. The only book that I stopped reading, and tore the book in half was “Killer Angels” because it is ahistorical and an insult to the participants in the battle of Gettysburg.

    On second thought, I guess “tedious and boring” were not quite the right words for the Moo book. Infantile, tedious, boring, and a waste of my time are probably more accurate.

    And there’s another book by Victor Davis Hanson that is completely unreadable, some kind of history and I won’t bother look it up. The book starts off with too many characters not introduced sufficiently and you don’t even know who the book is following and it just isn’t worth the time to figure out. Nice guy, one hit wonder in the history department, and otherwise doesn’t have much to say. I generally think he is over rated.

    I was right! Your pans are worth reading. More please.

    • #10
  11. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):
    If you know almost nothing about history, if you know almost nothing about the US Navy, if you know almost nothing about the world in general, then maybe you’ll like this book. I found it tedious and boring.

    Thank you for your opinion. I certainly know something about history, the US Navy, and the world in general. I read this book and reviewed it. Since I only review books I feel are worth recommending to others we will have to agree to disagree. Can you name any other books you find tedious and boring? I am always looking for a good read. Other books you rank alongside this one are worth investigating. You might be right in your judgement next time. Might.

    But do you disagree with the assertion that the book is mostly NOT about the named ship?  Which might seem to make it some kind of bait-and-switch.

    • #11
  12. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    mildlyo (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):

    My drill sergeant back when I was trained in the last century, opined in bull session on the last day of training that he liked the draft because it was more likely to produce soldiers who thought of war as a problem to be solved so as to return to normal life rather than a career in a bureaucracy.

    I am so going to steal this quote

    The problem is that it’s not really accurate.  We have had phenomenal soldiers.  We’ve had terrible politicians and generals/admirals.  

    For instance, with the unit rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was no incentive for the generals to win the war.  You go and you wait for your tour to end and you don’t take chances because there’s another unit coming soon and you don’t want to upset the apple cart by causing a disruption in the unit rotation cycle.  The cycle is quite a logistics puzzle, and if it gets disrupted then a LOT of people will get upset.  The goal of every unit is to train up, arrive on time, and then begin your retrograde planning for returning to the US.  Winning doesn’t rank up anywhere near that high, and eventually no one even wonders what winning might be.  Existing is the goal.

    This isn’t the fault of the individuals, and a draft would absolutely not make things better. 

    The greatest weakness of the American military is keeping the support of the American people.  Americans support the war so long as they think we are doing everything to win.  Once they realize that’s not the case, the support quickly dies off, as it should.  The Bushes never learned that.  They are very good at starting wars, and very bad at winning them.  For all their talk about (the squeamish loser) Powell’s “doctrine,” they never took winning very seriously.  And that’s why much of the world just doesn’t take us very seriously.

    • #12
  13. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    kedavis (View Comment):
    But do you disagree with the assertion that the book is mostly NOT about the named ship?  Which might seem to make it some kind of bait-and-switch.

    Well, it’s about the ship in that it tries to tell a story about the ship.  But it’s like the author didn’t have much actual data about the ship so he just wrote about anything roughly associated to the ship or the navy.  It’s like writing a biography of some general in the Revolution but not really knowing anything about  him, only that he was in the war and did things that no one really noticed.

    • #13
  14. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    Skyler (View Comment):
    The only book that I stopped reading, and tore the book in half was “Killer Angels” because it is ahistorical and an insult to the participants in the battle of Gettysburg.

    You just revealed that your opinion should be ignored.

    Now I’m even more excited to read this one.

    • #14
  15. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Seawriter: It participated in virtually every major Pacific campaign from the Wake Island strikes in October 1943 . . .

    By the way, Wake Island was used as a training island.  Every ship attacked it before heading west because it was almost entirely safe to attack and a good place to train your crew.

    That’s the kind of context that was completely missing from the book.

    • #15
  16. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    OldPhil (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):
    The only book that I stopped reading, and tore the book in half was “Killer Angels” because it is ahistorical and an insult to the participants in the battle of Gettysburg.

    You just revealed that your opinion should be ignored.

    Now I’m even more excited to read this one.

    Because you don’t like history to be accurate?  

    • #16
  17. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):
    If you know almost nothing about history, if you know almost nothing about the US Navy, if you know almost nothing about the world in general, then maybe you’ll like this book. I found it tedious and boring.

    Thank you for your opinion. I certainly know something about history, the US Navy, and the world in general. I read this book and reviewed it. Since I only review books I feel are worth recommending to others we will have to agree to disagree. Can you name any other books you find tedious and boring? I am always looking for a good read. Other books you rank alongside this one are worth investigating. You might be right in your judgement next time. Might.

    But do you disagree with the assertion that the book is mostly NOT about the named ship? Which might seem to make it some kind of bait-and-switch.

    The book is definitely about the Cowpens. It is also about the air groups that flew off of it and the crew that manned it. It is analogous to The Big EBig Ship, Little War, and USS Princeton: The Life and Loss of “Sweet P” (another history of a light carrier that appeared in 2024) and a lot of other ship biographies. It includes discussions about the difficulty of manning these carriers given the vast expansion of the US Navy between 1939 and 1942, what happened with the aviators aboard the ship (including a senior officer shot down and stranded for nearly a month aboard a life raft in the Pacific), the experiences the crews went through during Typhoon Cobra, and much, much more.

    I know a little something about the Pacific War, having written around a dozen books either touching on it or directly about it. The author demonstrates some solid knowledge of it in this book. I could nit pick about interpretations and emphasizes but he has the broad stroke right and delivers a solid history of what happened aboard Cowpens between 1942 and 1945.

    That’s one reason I commented. Because the criticism of the book was as silly as I have ever read. If it were target shooting his shots would have ended up on the target in the lane next to the one he was shooting at. A man who says Victor Davis Hanson is unreadable is a reader with absolutely no discernment. Someone like that is the George Constanza of historical criticism.

    • #17
  18. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    Skyler (View Comment):

    OldPhil (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):
    The only book that I stopped reading, and tore the book in half was “Killer Angels” because it is ahistorical and an insult to the participants in the battle of Gettysburg.

    You just revealed that your opinion should be ignored.

    Now I’m even more excited to read this one.

    Because you don’t like history to be accurate?

    Because I know to read what you don’t like.

    • #18
  19. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    A man who says Victor Davis Hanson is unreadable is a reader with absolutely no discernment. Someone like that is the George Constanza of historical criticism.

    “Applause”

    • #19
  20. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Seawriter: It participated in virtually every major Pacific campaign from the Wake Island strikes in October 1943 . . .

    By the way, Wake Island was used as a training island. Every ship attacked it before heading west because it was almost entirely safe to attack and a good place to train your crew.

    That’s the kind of context that was completely missing from the book.

    It was most definitely not a training raid in October 1943. That was the first operation involving the Fast Carrier Force and it was very much a learning exercise. It devolved into a training exercise later in the war, but not in October 1943. You really are the George Constanza of naval history.

    • #20
  21. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    It was most definitely not a training raid in October 1943. That was the first operation involving the Fast Carrier Force and it was very much a learning exercise. It devolved into a training exercise later in the war, but not in October 1943. You really are the George Constanza of naval history

    Whatever.  You like bad books.

    • #21
  22. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    Since I only review books I feel are worth recommending to others we will have to agree to disagree.

     

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    You really are the George Constanza of naval history.

    It’s funny how it starts with we will have to agree to disagree, but then it devolves into personal attacks.

    • #22
  23. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    Since I only review books I feel are worth recommending to others we will have to agree to disagree.

     

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    You really are the George Constanza of naval history.

    It’s funny how it starts with we will have to agree to disagree, but then it devolves into personal attacks.

    You are at liberty to not read my reviews. But if you choose to make egregiously incorrect comments (the October 1943 Wake raid was a training mission, Victor Davis Hanson is unreadable) you will be called out on your egregiously incorrect judgements.

    • #23
  24. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Old Bathos (View Comment):
    The story of the US industrial response to Pearl Harbor is almost unbelievable. Not just an exponential increase in carriers but tens of thousands of ships, planes, tanks and all the fuel and supplies needed.

    US Aircraft Production

    Year

    Aircraft Produced

    1935

    2,141

    1936

    2,500

    1937

    2,800

    1938

    3,000

    1939

    3,251

    1940

    6,086

    1941

    26,277

    1942

    47,836

    1943

    85,898

    1944

    96,318

    1945

    49,761

    I think it’s more interesting to look at how they did aircraft maintenance.

    When the war started, aircraft carriers kept spares lashed to the over head of the hangar bays and they fixed planes that broke and tried to get them flying again. Spare parts were kept on hand or delivered as needed.

    In phase two, they had auxiliary ships that had spare aircraft. When a bird was beyond a quick fix, they would fly it or barge it (if not air worthy) over to a repair ship who would send a replacement plane.

    In phase three, if a plane was broken too badly to quickly fix, they would throw it over board and get a new one flown aboard to replace it. The carrier air wing was always kept at full strength and they stopped bothering with spare parts, and just replaced the entire aircraft.

    Planes were a lot cheaper back then than today, but that’s still pretty amazing.

    Even moreso:

    AT THE START OF 1944, the U.S. Navy had 27,500 airplanes in service, a tenfold increase since 1940. As the assembly lines at Grumman, Douglas, Martin, and Curtiss reached peak production between March and June of that year, the navy’s inventory of new planes swelled so rapidly that it threatened to become an unmanageable glut. The service accepted delivery of 24,000 new combat aircraft during the 1944 fiscal year, a figure that exceeded the totals for the previous three years combined. That was a high-class problem, one that any other combatant nation of the Second World War would have been glad to face. But the admirals faced an immediate decision: How to resolve the mismatch between surging production and a bloated inventory? In February, Admiral King signed an order fixing an upper limit of 38,000 planes in service, and adamantly refused to relax that edict. The production lines began ramping down steeply in the summer of 1944—but the plants could not be permitted to shut down entirely. To preserve the physical capital and know-how of this strategically vital industry, it was thought necessary to keep them turning over at a reduced rate. Admiral McCain, then serving as deputy CNO for air, proposed a plan to assign only the newest aircraft to frontline service, and to return older units to the United States for training or other purposes. In September 1944, the navy adopted a more radical plan—to junk thousands of older planes, including those already deployed in the Pacific, to make room for newer units. The word went out to all commands: get rid of older aircraft by any means necessary. As a measure of the industrial might of the United States in 1944 and 1945, the subsequent whirl of destruction told a better story than a thousand pages of statistics. If a plane needed minor repairs, it was pulled off the flight line and junked, and a shiny new replacement unit flew in to take its place. Hundreds of airplanes were flown into remote Pacific island airstrips, parked in a vacant clearing, and abandoned. Many such aircraft “boneyards” were later used for target practice by U.S. bombers on training missions. Scrapped airplanes were bulldozed into pits, and the wreckage compacted by running tanks over them. Marginally damaged carrier planes were pushed off the flight decks into the sea, and new replacement units flown in from escort carriers. This mass-junking of perfectly serviceable warplanes occurred at the height of the war, when the Japanese were falling well short of aircraft production targets and struggling to keep their assembly lines in operation at all.

    Toll, Ian W.. Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy) (p. 417). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

     

     

    • #24
  25. Nanocelt TheContrarian Member
    Nanocelt TheContrarian
    @NanoceltTheContrarian

    I like the name “Cowpens” after the historic and outcome-changing battle of the Revolutionary War in South Carolina. Morgan, the Continental commander at the battle,  developed on the fly a remarkable battle plan that worked almost as planned and resulted in the Continental victory that affected subsequent battles and led eventually to the surrender at Yorktown.

    By the way, Seawriter, can you recommend any good books on the Action off Samar (Part of the Battle of the Leyte Gulf)?  There were Medal of Honor winners in that battle, including Earnest Evans, who commanded the USS Johnston, one of the Fletcher Class destroyers that made a desperate but extremely effective, essentially suicidal, charge through a large Japanese fleet.  . 

    I recently met (unfortunately shortly before his death) a gentleman who was the director of the flight deck of the Essex, (the carrier that defined the class) from that carrier’s entry to the war until the Japanese surrender. 

    I once knew a man who was a second lieutenant on the bridge of one of the destroyers off Omaha Beach on D Day. I asked him about Stephen Ambrose’s description in his book on D day, of the maneuvering of 2 destroyers, in which the destroyers would head full steam for the beach, sounding as they went, until they could go no further, whereupon they turned abruptly parallel to the beach and unloaded broadsides on the German positions on the cliffs, then headed back out to sea only to repeat the maneuver, to assist the Rangers scaling  the cliffs. The Lieutenant informed me that there was only one destroyer there, the one that he was on, and no such maneuvers were undertaken.  I have wondered about Ambrose’s history of the event ever since. Would you by chance have any insight into those small details of that day?

    Thanks

     

    • #25
  26. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Nanocelt TheContrarian (View Comment):
    By the way, Seawriter, can you recommend any good books on the Action off Samar (Part of the Battle of the Leyte Gulf)?  There were Medal of Honor winners in that battle, including Earnest Evans, who commanded the USS Johnston, one of the Fletcher Class destroyers that made a desperate but extremely effective, essentially suicidal, charge through a large Japanese fleet.

    The book on the Action off Samar is The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour by the late James D. Hornfischer. I linked the Kindle version, but it is available in hardcover, paperback and audio form depending on your preference. I featured Samuel B. Roberts‘s torpedo run as one of the plates in my book US Navy Destroyer Escorts of World War II, but my work does not compare to that of Hornfischer.

    • #26
  27. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    Since I only review books I feel are worth recommending to others we will have to agree to disagree.

     

    Seawriter (View Comment):
    You really are the George Constanza of naval history.

    It’s funny how it starts with we will have to agree to disagree, but then it devolves into personal attacks.

    You are at liberty to not read my reviews. But if you choose to make egregiously incorrect comments (the October 1943 Wake raid was a training mission, Victor Davis Hanson is unreadable) you will be called out on your egregiously incorrect judgements.

    Wake Island was not simply for training, there was a real enemy there.  But in Oct 43 there was little danger that the garrison there could do much but serve as token resistance.  

    Have you read “The End of Sparta?”  If you haven’t read it, then I’ll tell you that it is unreadable.  He introduces seemingly scores of characters and doesn’t even bother to help the reader know who is doing what or even what the (apparent) protagonist is doing.  It’s a simply horrible work.  Other works are fine, I’m sure, I just think he’s a one trick pony that got the attention of Donald Kagan with his fresh idea of the importance of farming to the greek city-state mode of civilization.  That was a really good book.  Everything else was ho hum, except for the “The End of Sparta,” which is terrible.

    My judgments are not “incorrect.”  They are judgments that you don’t agree with.  It takes a lot of hubris to posit that only your opinions matter.  

    If you’re going to write reviews, you should know that for every review there are those who don’t agree.  Everytime.  It doesn’t mean I hate you.  It means I disagree with your review. 

    • #27
  28. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Sounds like a good book, Seawriter.

    • #28
  29. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Skyler, I’ve read most, if not all, of Seawriter’s reviews. A few of them are for books that I’ve already read. That is pretty rare. I might not have concurred 100% with his opinion, but they wouldn’t have risen beyond a minor quibble or two. Certainly nothing that I felt a need to expound upon.

    I’ve read your opinion on The Mighty Moo. You found it beneath you. I have nothing to judge that by other than what I’ve read from Seawriter’s review. I’ve read your opinion of The End of Sparta. You found it unreadable. I found it challenging. Perhaps the difference in our perspectives there is that I’ve read a fair number of Greek classical works. The Iliad. The Odyssey. Anabasis. The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Herodotus’ Histories. Heavy sledding, some of it. The End of Sparta was written more in the style of those works. Ken Follett it ain’t. De gustibus non est disputandum.

    • #29
  30. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Nanocelt TheContrarian (View Comment):
    I once knew a man who was a second lieutenant on the bridge of one of the destroyers off Omaha Beach on D Day. I asked him about Stephen Ambrose’s description in his book on D day, of the maneuvering of 2 destroyers, in which the destroyers would head full steam for the beach, sounding as they went, until they could go no further, whereupon they turned abruptly parallel to the beach and unloaded broadsides on the German positions on the cliffs, then headed back out to sea only to repeat the maneuver, to assist the Rangers scaling  the cliffs. The Lieutenant informed me that there was only one destroyer there, the one that he was on, and no such maneuvers were undertaken.  I have wondered about Ambrose’s history of the event ever since. Would you by chance have any insight into those small details of that day?

    I checked Morison (Vol 11 – The invasion of France and Germany, 1944-1945). He has nine US destroyers off Omaha Beach.  Five were off Point du Hoc, of which three provided gunnery support of the Rangers. He also states that several destroyers got within 1000-900 yards of the beach to provide gunnery support. 

    • #30
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