Official History of USS Cowpens (CVL-25)

  The USS COWPENS threw off an early jinx to go on to glory in the finest American tradition.  She started life like her sisters of the INDEPENDENCE Class, converted from a light cruiser to an aircraft carrier under the pressure of war.

  When her keel was laid at the New York Shipbuilding Company in Camden, New Jersey, they even had another name for her. She was to have been the light cruiser HUNTINGTON.  But 14 months later when she was launched, the Navy had changed both her looks and her name. She had sprouted out into a flat-topped carrier.  When her sponsor, Mrs. Margaret Halsey Spruance, daughter of Fleet Admiral William T. Halsey, broke the bottle of champagne over her bow, she had the name COWPENS and the hull-number designation CVL-25.  They took the name Cowpens from a famous battle of the Revolutionary War, when we whipped the British at a town by that name near Spartanburg, South Carolina.  The launching, on January 17, 1943, came exactly 162 years after the Battle of Cowpens. Rear Admiral Milo F. Draemel commissioned the COWPENS at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on May 28, 1943.The first skipper of the COWPENS was Captain Robert P. McConnell who had commanded the ill fated seaplane tender LANGLEY.  The COWPENS made her trial run on Delaware Bay on June 20, and steamed into Chesapeake Bay for shakedown five days later.  Her first air group landed aboard on July 3. This was Air Group 25, and that same day the COWPENS launched her first plane by catapult.

  The bad luck that haunted the COWPENS in her early days was not long in coming.  Putting into Norfolk, Virginia, on July 14, she ran afoul of the antisubmarine nets, and hung there like trapped fish.  It cost her a day in dry dock.

  Between July 21 and August 8, the COWPENS flexed her muscles on a training run to Port of Spain, Trinidad, and back to Philadelphia.   She was still in the training phase when she left Philadelphia on August 26 to make the trip through the Panama Canal to the West Coast.  But the pressure of war was getting stronger.  The COWPENS stayed in San Diego only overnight before leaving for Pearl Harbor on September 13, 1943.

  How the COWPENS got her nickname is not recorded for posterity. They called her "The Mighty Moo", from the association of sounds in her name.  It was a strange mixture of pride and derision.  Only a great ship could live with such a nickname; even take pride in the element of nonsense.   If you weren’t a COWPENS man, you had to smile when you said it. In any case, "Mighty Moo" it was.  The COWPENS newspaper carried it proudly on the masthead.

  The trip to Pearl Harbor brought the meaning of war much closer.  The COWPENS was still very new and altogether untried when she put in at the famous Hawaiian Islands anchorage in September 1943.  The scars of war still showed on Pearl Harbor, and there were ships there that had slugged it out with the Japanese and knew what war was all about.  The 1500 officers and men of the COWPENS had ten days to fit themselves into this pattern.

  The COWPENS put to sea on her trial mission of war on September 29, 1943.  She was a unit of Task Group 59.18; one of five carriers with the job of hitting storied Wake Island.  They called that one a warm-up, and it was for everyone except the American pilots and the Japanese on the receiving end.  Our planes smashed at the island defenses almost without let-up starting on October 5.  It was some measure of revenge for what had happened to our Marines at Wake.  There were no Japanese ships or planes to fight back, but their anti-aircraft fire on the island knocked down some of our planes.  Our rescue submarines picked up some, but not all.

  Back at Pearl Harbor more bad luck awaited the COWPENS.  While exercising on October 17th, she was rammed in the starboard side aft by a destroyer.  The gash was nine days healing in dry dock, and still another stroke of misfortune was in store.  They were pumping gasoline out of the ship when a fire broke out for reasons unknown.   Nobody got hurt, but it didn’t help.   There was talk that the COWPENS was a jinx ship.

  The next job for COWPENS was her first lesson in air support for ground forces.  The Marines were going to land at Tarawa and the carriers got the job of softening up the defenses and seeing that the Japanese Fleet didn't interfere.  They pounded most or the islands within range of Tarawa between November 20th and 24th with the COWPENS air group concentrating on Makin and Mille.

  As soon as the landing was in the bag, the carriers moved up to the Marshall Islands.  The Japanese were using these islands to stage planes for attacks on our forces in the Gilberts.  COWPENS hit Kwajalein and Eniwetok on the 4th and 5th of December, where her fighters caught 11 Japanese torpedo planes on the ground and destroyed them.

  Here the ship got its’ baptism of fire.   Twice on the 4th the Japanese tried to sneak small groups of planes through to attack our carriers, and at night, they sent out 30 or more torpedo planes.  Those that came in during daylight were shot down.  The night attacks were colorful and exciting with the Japanese dropping flares.  They got one torpedo hit on another carrier, but the only damage to the COWPENS was accidental.  A plane from another carrier tried to land aboard crashed over the side and killed four Marine gunners.   It was a tough break, but the fighting had put now confidence in everybody.   The COWPENS had shaken off the jinx talk and began to operate -with the cool efficiency of a veteran.

  Truk was next on the list.  The COWPENS left Pearl Harbor early in February, again with Task Group 58.3. Each attack had carried deeper into the Japanese Island defenses, and with the announcement that Truk was the objective came a natural apprehension.  Little was then known about this enemy strongpoint in the Carolines.  Legend had built Truk into a well-nigh-impregnable fortress.

  Task Force 53 was getting stronger all the time, but the men aboard the COWPENS, like everyone else in the force, had yet to realize their own strength.  Truk proved to be a lot softer than supposed.  Our planes smashed at its shipping, airfields and other defenses throughout the 16th and 17th of February, encountering surprisingly feeble opposition.  COWPENS planes helped sink a Japanese light cruiser, shot down three enemy planes and destroyed many more on the ground.  The overall damage to the enemy was heavy, but more important was the lift to our morale.

  From Truk, the task force moved up to the Marianas to learn more about Guam, Saipan and the other islands slated for invasion.   The job involved important photographic coverage of the islands in addition to whatever damage could be inflicted.

  Up to this point, every operation in which the COWPENS bad been involved had started with the element of surprise in our favor.   This time a Japanese plane spotted the task force still 420 miles away from the objective.  They still had plenty of fleet and aircraft strength to oppose us.   Nobody yet knew what would happen with aircraft carriers going up against island-based planes that were ready.  The decision to fight our way in came from Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher, and his fame as the commander of Task Force 58 was to grow from then on.  The Japanese did their best to stop us.  They threw waves of torpedo planes at us all during the night before our attack without doing any damage, and the air battle grew fiercer with the dawn.

  The COWPENS and the other carriers had to launch their first waves while under enemy air attack. But they couldn't stop us.   0ur planes worked Guam, Saipan and Rota through the 23rd, sinking seven Japanese ships and shooting down 51 of their planes in all.  The COWPENS contribution in the air battles was the destruction of four enemy planes. From then on we knew that the carriers could go "anywhere they damn well pleased."

  Things were pretty quiet for the next few weeks.  The Army was getting set for new invasions in New Guinea and needed fleet support.  The Japanese Fleet was still a threat.  After our first Truk attack, the Japanese had moved their bigger ships back to Palau and Yap.  The carriers’ assignment was to keep the enemy fleet off the necks of the Army in New Guinea.   While the preparations continued, the COWPENS and the other ships of the carrier force made ready at Pearl Harbor and Majuro, an atoll anchorage in the Marshall Islands.

  It was decided to go after the Japanese ships at Palau and Yap, and the COWPENS was attached to Task Group 58.1 for this operation.  Again the Japanese sighted the task force, and again there were night and day air attacks before we got within striking range.  The Japanese lost nine planes without doing any damage.  We hit Palau on March 30th, Yap on the 31st and Woleai on the first of April.  The big Japanese ships had high-tailed it away at the news of our coming.  We had to be content with shooting up lesser ships, pounding the ground defenses and destroying some more planes.

  Then came the Army landings in New Guinea and the easiest job of all.  The carriers hit airfields to the north of the landing points, Sarmi, Wake, Sarvar and Humboldt Bay, on April 21st and 22nd.  The Japanese had sighted us on the 19th, but didn't offer any serious opposition.  Our pilots couldn't find enough enemy planes to keep them busy and a race to the kill developed every time one turned up.  The COWPENS pilots got their share.

  When the Army was secure in its new footholds, the carrier task force left for other work.  They gave Truk another pasting on the 29th of April on the way home.  Ground installations were the main target and the anti-aircraft fire was heavy.  This COWPENS was not attacked, but other groups fought off several groups of torpedo planes and shot down 38 of them.   On the way back to Majuro, the carriers rested while the battleships in the screen bombarded Ponape.  During this period the COWPENS’ second skipper, Captain Hubert W. Taylor, flew aboard.  He relieved Captain McConnell on May 8th.  The amphibious attack on the Marianas was the biggest to date.  The COWPENS was a part of Task Group 58.4; one of four carrier groups assigned to win control of the air and pave the way for the landings.  It started with air attacks on the first objective, Saipan, on June 11th.  The next day, while leading a fighter attack on a Japanese convoy trying to escape, the COWPENS Air Group Commander, Lieutenant Commander Robert Price, was shot down.  A specially organized air search located him in the water and dropped a life raft, but night fell before he could be picked up.  Other searches failed to locate him the next day and he was given up for lost.  However, by great good luck he was spotted by another task group and rescued 11 days later, more dead than alive.

  From the 11th to the 19th, the COWPENS’ group bombed and strafed the Marianas, with a side jaunt up to give Iwo Jima the same treatment.  The enemy air opposition was feeble, but on the 27th word came through that the Japanese Fleet was on the prowl out of the Philippines.

  The tide of battle ashore on Guam and Saipan was going our way, and the Japanese were making a final effort to save the day.  It came on the 19th, with the Japanese carriers launching their planes at a great distance; a one way air attack of suicidal proportions with no turning back for their pilots.   The ensuing air battle, later called the "Marianas Turkey Shoot", was terrific.  They sent wave after wave in an effort to smash our fleet and our fighters met then head on.  Not a single American ship was seriously damaged.  The Japanese lost 402 planes; only 17 of ours were shot down.

  The next day the COWPENS had to refuel out of the battle area and so missed the follow up attack on the Japanese Fleet known as the Battle of the Philippine Sea.  The ship returned to action and continued supporting the invasion until the 6th of July.  Then back to Pearl Harbor for routine repairs and to send home a very tired air group.

  The Marianas operation cost Air Group 25 eight fighters and one torpedo plane in action.  Four of the lost pilots were seen alive in the water, but were lost before rescue efforts could be organized.  After that there was much more emphasis placed on pilot rescue.  On the other hand, the air group shot down 20 enemy planes, with four others listed as ‘probable’.   The pilots flew a total of 950 sorties, many of them carrying bombs against shore installations.

  When the COWPENS left Pearl Harbor in August 1944, she had a new air group and a now look; a snappy job of zigzag camouflage paint to replace her solid gray.  Air Group 22, under Lieutenant Commander T. H. Jenkins, reported aboard July 30th.  By now, American strength in the Pacific had grown to the point where a return to the Philippines was in order.  The fast carrier task force got its usual job of paving the way.  The planes started off by hitting everything within air range of the invasion points.  First on the list were the Palau Islands, which COWPENS' planes had visited before.  The ship was a part or Task Group 38.1, under the overall command of Vice Admiral William A. Halsey.  The planes hit the islands of Anguar, Ugeaebus and Malakal on the 6th, 7th and 8th of September, without running into any air opposition.

  The task force then moved down to repeat the performance in the Philippines.  Mindanao, Negros, Cabu and Leyte were attacked through the 14th.  On the 15th the Army invaded the island of Morotai in the Netherlands Indies and there were two days of air cover for this move, as well as air sweeps over the northern Celebes to keep the Japanese planes away.

  The hunting failed to flush much game, so the carriers shifted their attention back to the Philippines. Attacks on enemy shipping at Manila and other Luzon ports stirred up some opposition on the 20th.  The COWPENS 40 and 20 millimeter guns helped repel the Japanese attackers.

  This opening phase of the Philippine campaign ended on the 24th of September with attacks on the Visayas and Cebu.  During the whole period, COWPENS planes shot down 41 Japanese Aircraft and damaged 20 ships, with the loss or seven of our planes.

  The first phase of the Philippine campaign ended with the carriers pausing for breath at Manus Island for four days starting September 28.  With 100,000 miles of cruising behind her, the COWPENS at this point began to show the first signs of wear and tear; a leaky boiler, a jammed plane elevator and a lot of vibration.  However, the first Army troops would hit the beach in Leyte Gulf on the 17th of October 1944, and there wasn't time for a first-class overhaul.    It was off again on the 2nd, with Formosa as the target.

  The task force swept down from the north, raking the Ryukyus and northern Luzon on the way.  COWPENS’ planes helped sink two cargo ships and destroyed some more Japanese planes in the process.  Formosa was tough.  It was through this big island that the Japanese were staging planes into the Philippines.  We hit it for three days starting October 12th, and the Japanese fought back with determination.  The action was almost continuous night and day.   Here the COWPENS’ guns brought down their first plane.

  A Japanese plane scored a torpedo hit on the heavy cruiser CANBERRA on the 13th, and the same thing happened to the light cruiser HOUSTON the next day.  We started a retreat on the 15th, with the two cripples slowing us down.  While other ships stood between the damaged cruisers and the enemy, the COWPENS and her sister ship CABOT furnished air cover.  Japanese planes kept after the wounded ships, and the ensuing air battles were the fiercest to date for COWPENS.  Her planes accounted for 17 of some 80 enemy planes shot down on the 15th and 16th.  The HOUSTON was hit a second time by a torpedo, but all ships made it back to Ulithi.

  There was little rest for the weary.   Word came through on the 25th of October that the Japanese Fleet was on it’s way to the Philippines, and the now famous Second Battle of the Philippine Sea was well underway when the carriers got there.  Three of the task groups destroyed the Japanese carrier force to the north, while the COWPENS flew combat air patrols and fighter sweeps over airfields in the Visayan Islands.  Later, the COWPENS helped chase the remnants of the enemy battleship force back through The Sibuyan Sea.  COWPENS torpedo planes scored three hits on a heavy cruiser to help finish her off, and damaged other enemy ships.  With the threat to our landings removed, the carriers once more retired to Ulithi.

  It had been planned for the carriers to hit the Japanese home islands next, but the occupation forces ran into tough going in the Philippines.  The Japanese were able to send in both land and air reinforcements.   The carriers were called back to halt this flow.  The task group, including the COWPENS, started this phase by hitting a convoy of 12 freighters off Lingayen Gulf, damaging four.  Bad weather and Kamikaze attacks complicated things.  Next it was a convoy of 20 ships between Cebu and Leyte, none of which escaped undamaged.

  The force then headed for Central Luzon to concentrate on the enemy's air strength and shipping. This series of attacks saw COWPENS' planes destroy 38 enemy planes by bombing and strafing.  The force beat off an air attack the afternoon of October 28th, shooting down 21 planes before retiring to Ulithi.

  At this point Captain Taylor was relieved by Captain G. H. DeBaun; giving the COWPENS her third and last commanding officer of the war period.

  The Philippines continued to occupy the attention of the COWPENS and the other fast carriers throughout the rest or 1944.   The task force shuttled back and forth from Ulithi to hack away at enemy aircraft and shipping until the Army built up its strength ashore and could look after itself.    It was during one or these forays that the carriers encountered a severe typhoon.   For the COWPENS, the storm proved more vicious than the enemy.   There had been a lot of rough weather, but the typhoon that struck off the Philippines on December 17th vas the worst of all.  Winds up to 100 miles an hour buffeted the COWPENS.  She wallowed in the monstrous seas for seemingly endless hours rolling as much as 45 degrees in the worst of her agony.

  Topside gear tore loose.  Bombs in the forward magazine broke away and rolled about crazily.  Men trying to secure them had to jump up and hang to the overhead at times to avoid being crushed to death by the bombs.   Tractors and planes broke loose from their lashings and careened wildly about the flight deck.  A fighter belly tank caught fire from the friction.  The firefighters had to lash themselves to the deck to avoid being washed overboard.   They finally succeeded in pushing the flaming plane over the side, but not without a casualty.  In the struggle Lieutenant Commander Price, who had escaped death by such a narrow margin six months before, disappeared.  He had come back as the ship’s air officer after the relief of Air Group 25.

  At the height of the storm the COWPENS surface radar went out of action, and the captain decided to try to fight his way clear alone, for fear of colliding with the other ships.  The task group commander assigned two destroyers as escorts.  Only one could find the COWPENS.  The destroyer HALSEY POWELL guided COWPENS by radio.

  The worst was over on the 18th, and the next day the COWPENS rejoined the task group.   Christmas was spent at Ulithi while the damage was repaired.  In so damaging the COWPENS, the typhoon had done something the Japanese never were able to do.

  New Years Day 1945, found the COWPENS once more on the go.  More troop landings were scheduled in the Philippines, and again the mission was to knockout the Japanese air strength from a position to interfere.   Formosa was again a prime target, and for the job the COWPENS was assigned to Task Group 38.1, under Rear Admiral Arthur Radford.

  Our attacks started on January 2nd, but bad weather hampered operations and the carriers moved down closer to the Philippines after three days.  By the 7th, our planes were ranging over northern Luzon.  But the hunting was poor, and it was decided to try again at Formosa.  Still more foul weather sent the task force in search of prey elsewhere.  We entered the China Sea, with the COWPENS being the first carrier through Bashi Channel.  Although hampered by storms and squalls the force hit Camranh Bay, French Indo-China, and Hong Kong.

  This penetration into water so close to the Japanese homeland brought a radio threat from "Tokyo Rose".  She promised that the American carriers would be destroyed.  But little or no opposition turned up, and it was the continued bad weather and not the Japanese that caused retirement from the China Sea on January 20th.

  On the way back to Ulithi, the planes hit Formosa again on the 21st.  Here the COWPENS fighter director brought about a neat interception.  Fifteen of 18 enemy planes trying to attack the carriers were shot down and the others chased off.   It earned the ship a special commendation from the task force commander.

  The third air group to fly from the COWPENS, Air Group 46, came to the ship at Ulithi on February 6th, 1945, skippered by Commander C. W. Rooney.  The Iwo Jima campaign was coming up and fresh pilots were needed.

  To protect the Marines landing at Iwo Jima, it was necessary to stop the Japanese air force at the Empire itself.  COWPENS was attached to Task Group 58.3, under Rear Admiral Frederick O. Sherman for the operation.   The ships sortied from Ulithi on February 10th.

  The attacks on the Empire were launched from a point 125 miles off Yokahama on the 16th. They continued with little opposition for two days before the task force moved back closer to Iwo Jima.  Another day of strikes in the Tokyo area came on the 24th.  The Japanese again failed to put up much fight, but an accident on board marred the occasion for the COWPENS.

  A returning fighter bounced over the barrier and crashed into the planes spotted forward on the flight deck, smashing up 5 of them and causing two men to jump overboard and be lost.  After that the task force swept down for more strikes in the Ryukyus before retiring to Ulithi.  There, on March 7th, the COWPENS was ordered home.

  This first return to the United States found COWPENS at San Francisco on March 28th.  Her overhaul at Mare Island and the subsequent trials kept her stateside until the 21st of May.  During these two months the executive officer and every department head, except the first lieutenant and the supply officer, were relieved.

  COWPENS had dropped Air Group 46 in the forward area.  When the ship again sailed for the warfront, she had her fourth and last group, Air Group 50, under Commander R. E. Kirkpatrick.  Upon arrival, COWPENS was assigned to Task Group 38.4, under Rear Admiral Radford again, and took up where she had left off three months before.  From the 10th of July until the war ended on August 15th, she pounded Japanese shipping and aircraft from Hokkaido to the Inland Sea.   She helped finish off the battleships NAGATO and OYADO.  COWPENS planes accounted for two enemy planes in the air and 29 on the ground, sank 31 small ships and damaged 23 others, besides damaging numerous ground targets. Only once was the task force under attack.

  The COWPENS was attached to the "show of force" group sent into Sagami Bay on August 27th, the only carrier, and the next day her planes flew passengers ashore to Atsugi Airfield. These are believed to be the first Navy planes to land on Japanese soil after the war.

  During the 22 and a half months of fighting in which she participated, the COWPENS hung up this record:

  The COWPENS was placed in commission in reserve in the Alameda Group of the Pacific Reserve Fleet in January 1947.

  The USS COWPENS was awarded the Navy Unit Commendation for outstanding heroism in action against Japanese forces during the Pacific war. The citation reads:

  "For outstanding heroism for action against the enemy Japanese forces in the air, ashore and afloat in the Pacific War Area from October 5, 1943 to August 15, 1945.  Operating continuously in the most forward areas, the USS COWPENS and her air groups struck crushing blows toward annihilating Japanese fighting power; they provided air cover for our amphibious forces; they fiercely countered the enemy’s aerial attacks and destroyed his planes; and they inflicted terrific losses on the Japanese in fleet and merchant marine units sunk or damaged.   Daring and dependable in combat the COWPENS with her gallant officers and men rendered loyal service in achieving the ultimate defeat of the Japanese Empire."

USS COWPENS, CVL 25, earned 12 battle stars on the Asiatic-Pacific Area Service Ribbon for participation in the following operations or engagements: