Nathan Canestaro may spend his days as a professional intelligence officer writing about military operations for policy makers in Washington, but in “The Mighty Moo” he has written a World War II adventure story for anyone interested in learning more about the war.
Subtitled “The USS Cowpens and Her Epic World War II Journey from Jinx Ship to the Navy’s First Carrier in Tokyo Bay,” he draws on personal stories from the seamen on her crew to bring life to official U.S. Navy reports.
One of the men who provided firsthand information was longtime Mankato businessman Lee Nordgren, who died in September 2018 at age 94.
Canestaro provides a chronological history of the USS Cowpens, a smaller carrier ship that was introduced because it could be produced faster than large Essex class carriers when the need arose. Holding true to that order would have meant Nordgren’s appearance wouldn’t come until near the end of the book.
But Nordgren helped illustrate other points, so he makes an appearance earlier in the book, well before he served on the Cowpens. The book came out in June after a decade in the works.
“The other thing that Lee was really great at talking about (was) when we think of America today, we tend to think of a whole, a country,” the author said via Zoom. “But in the 1940s, America was identified by region. …Many people never really traveled outside of their hometown.”
That was the case for Canestaro’s grandfather, another crew member of the Cowpens, which obtained the nickname “Mighty Moo.” The fact that his grandfather never really spoke of his time there is what prompted Canestaro to learn more about it, he said.
Nordgren, who took to the skies at age 15 and joined the Navy three years later in 1942, was not shy about sharing stories, Canestaro said. That had not been the case at home, according to Nordgren’s daughter Kris, who said it was while she was in her teens that she learned of her dad’s adventures.
Then in 2006, when she and her husband, Dave Fritz, returned to Mankato to help her siblings care for their aging parents, she learned more.
“My dad was asked to speak to a group regarding his flying experience,” she said. “I observed my dad writing notes and more notes.” She helped with the PowerPoint presentation and learned more about what he had experienced on the Mighty Moo.
“I also saw him weep for those he witnessed die tragically on the Mighty Moo as he thought and spoke of them often in later years as if to keep their memory alive,” she said. No wonder, then, he was eager to participate in the book.
One of Nordgren’s stories recounted in the book was the July 1945 mission he continued on despite it being called off due to bad weather. It earned Nordgren and his flight leader the Navy Cross, the highest medal awarded by the U.S. Department of Navy and the military’s second-highest award given for valor in combat.
Canestaro’s research began at the National Archives, which is about 30 minutes from his home.
“Say what you will about the Navy, they are meticulous record keepers,” he said. “And they left probably 1,000 pages of material, cataloging what the ship did every single day. So, I essentially built an outline of her 26 months in service, you know, a chronological outline.”
From there he started to reach out to survivors or relatives who could help put a personal voice to the events. They helped him flesh out the cryptic notes from the Navy.
He connected with Nordgren after a Google alert told him of an article written about a presentation he made, perhaps at the Mankato Kiwanis Club, Canestaro believes. The author of the article put him in touch with Nordgren’s daughter Kris.
“What was fantastic about it was where he was in his experience fit into a gap I had in the book,” he said. “So, it allowed me to really use everything he gave me. His was a fantastic perspective on sort of the last days of the war aboard the Cowpens.”
In some cases, he gained access to personal journals which, when compared to the timeline of official events, also helped put a personal face on mundane events. That keeps the book from reading like, well, a professional intelligence officer’s reports written for policymakers. One of Canestaro’s editors referred to the book as a “Band of Brothers at Sea.”
“This was an opportunity for me to kind of stretch my legs as an author, to try new stuff,” he said. “With any book, you have to decide who your audience is. And I wanted to tell the story of my grandfather’s ship and the men who served aboard to as many people as possible.”
Although the Navy cannot endorse such publications, other reviews have been favorable.
“This is an insider look at one of the most storied ships of the U.S. Navy, the Mighty Moo, and is a powerful and moving story in every dimension,” stated Admiral James Stavridis (retired), former supreme allied commander at NATO.
“This is a jaw-dropping tale of American sailors at war overcoming every challenge they faced with loyalty and heroism. This book is simply outstanding and a long needed addition to the story of the Pacific War,” stated John R. Bruning, author of “Race of Aces: WWII’s Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master of the Sky.”
The book allows Canestaro to complete the task he set out to do for his grandfather and others.
“I feel an obligation, I guess is what I’m trying to say, to the people I met along the way. To the families, to the veterans who passed, to sort of tell the story.”
The book is available in print or Kindle versions.