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http://www.charleston.net/stories/?newsID=87202§ion=localnews Ancon: The ship too lucky to sink
BY CHRIS DIXON The Post and Courier ARTICLE TOOLS Email This Article? Printer-Friendly Format? Reprints & Permissions? (coming soon) ADDITIONAL LOCAL NEWS NEWS
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On Sept. 11, 1943, John Tysor spent one of the most harrowing nights of his life aboard one of the luckiest ships in the Navy. "We intercepted a message that the ship with two high masts was to be sunk at all costs," he said.
That ship was the Ancon, a merchant liner that became the combined headquarters and communications command center for the Atlantic fleet.
Twelve of the Ancon's original 1,000 crew members were well enough to attend the ship's 59th annual reunion this week at the Holiday Inn Riverview. Tysor, then a signalman 2nd class and now the ship's historian, said at least 10 more of his shipmates are still alive, but he has lost 19 others in the past year.
That week in 1943, the Ancon's crew, which included 5th Army Cmdr. Mark Clark, had been under constant attack by German aircraft off the coast of Salerno, Italy. After receiving the message, the Ancon moved far enough offshore for Tysor to see the moonlit sky over the Ancon's former position further illuminated by flares from German fighters.
Led by prayers from Father Francis Ballinger, a chaplain who had been rescued after his own ship, the Joseph Hewes, had been sunk, the crew listened as the planes grew closer. Ballinger reportedly called on divine help from Mary, and a sea mist rose to obscure the 492-foot vessel. After that the ship took on a pair of nicknames, "The Lady of the Mist," or more simply, "The Miracle Ship."
Those still among the living sport faded tattoos of anchors and half-century-old bathing beauties. Age and long-ago gunfire have taken their toll on hearing and health, but eyes and memories are still clear. All have stories of the ship's adventures from North Africa to Normandy to the South Pacific ? many are harrowing.
In addition to carrying some of the most sophisticated communications equipment of the era, along with war correspondents John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway, the Ancon carried around 20 Landing Craft Personnel. These 36-foot boats, known as LCPs, ferried troops into battle and were manned by men such as gunner's mate Robert Duncan.
At 17, Duncan signed up for what he hoped would be submarine duty, but he ended up with one of the most dangerous jobs in the Navy. "It wasn't volunteer work," he said. "Getting onto the beach during
invasions was pretty nasty. The LCPs were quite vulnerable. Some got hit and some didn't make it back."
In North Africa, Duncan lost a navigator to machine gun fire. In Sicily, his boat was lifted out of the water by a German dive bomber, an event he called "too close for comfort." On a landing on Saipan, a battle that would cost 3,426 American lives, an Associated Press photographer captured Duncan's LCP as it hit the beach under heavy Japanese gunfire. "I was a glutton for punishment," he said.
One of Duncan's surviving shipmates is a self-described ne'er-do-well named Thomas Kostopoulos. After surviving trips through U-boat-infested waters around the world, a shipboard fight got Kostopoulos demoted from ship's gunner to Ancon LCP engineer.
Launching from the Ancon, Kostopoulos' job was to keep his LCP running and afloat as it rode in on the seventh attack wave at Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
During his first assault, Kostopoulos brought a dreadfully seasick boatload of troops in behind a tank transport boat that was blown up as it neared the beach. As the men unloaded and his LCP took on water, a landing craft next to him was destroyed by a German 88 mm gun. When he returned to the Ancon for a second load of troops, Kostopoulos watched his mothership shoot down a German bomber. "I felt like a little pea in the water at that moment," he said.
After taking his bullet-ridden boat to the beach with a second load of troops, Kostopoulos' rudder was damaged, leaving him running in circles just offshore. He fired a machine gun burst into the hull of a nearby LCP to get its pilot's attention and was towed back to the Ancon.
After D-Day, the Ancon was repaired and refitted in Charleston and sent to the South Pacific. Off Okinawa, Kostopoulos watched Kamikaze planes sink two American ships, and he endured 18 hours of attacks and rescue operations.
The Ancon was right off the bow of the battleship Missouri as the Japanese surrendered, and the crew, including Kostopoulos, eventually returned home to begin civilian lives. "When I came home, nothing bothered me," he said. "I'm just one dumb Greek they can't kill."
The demotion didn't seem to bother him either. "They called it punishment," he said, "but I'd go back tomorrow. I loved it."
The USS Ancon The Ancon was built to carry passengers and cargo for the Panama Railroad Co. and was later converted to serve in World War II.
History of the Ancon: 1938-39: Ancon is built for the Panama Railroad Co. 1942, August: Becomes an Army transport to carry troops to reinforce Australia 1942, November: Participates in the assault on Fedhala, French Morocco 1943 (early): Carries troops and cargo to North Africa 1943, February: Ancon is converted to a command ship. 1943, July: Supports the Sicily invasion 1943, September: Prepares for the invasion of mainland Italy, which Ancon helps lead. The Ancon also encounters an Italian submarine that does not fi ght but surrenders. 1943, November: Prepares for the invasion of France 1944, June: Ancon serves as the fl agship for the Normandy invasion?s Omaha Beach forces. 1944: Is overhauled in Charleston and assigned to the Pacifi c Theater 1945, June: Sails for the Philippines to prepare for a planned invasion of Japan. 1945, August: Ancon transmits news of the Japanese surrender to Hawaii. 1946, February: Is decommissioned and returned to the Panama Railroad Co. 1961: Becomes a training ship for Maine 1973, May: Ancon is sold for scrapping
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