In 1939 the Panama Line, an adjunct to the Railway Co., renewed its fleet of merchant vessels. The second of three to be commissioned was the ANCON. Her Maiden Voyage, originally scheduled to begin on 6 July, actually began on 22 June 1939. She had arrived in New York on 16 June 1939 from Quincy, MA. During her 350-mile delivery trials she had averaged a speed of 18.5 knots. She sailed to Cristobal in the Panama Canal Zone on the 22nd and returned to New York on July 8th.

The old Panama Line ships made the voyage in eight days. The new Panama Line ships made the voyage in six days, including the stop in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Southbound the ships carried Commissary supplies: Northbound they carried green coffee beans (whose odour permeated the dock sheds), as well as bananas and raw cotton.

In 1958 the Ancon was honoured by the issuance of this Canal Zone stamp:

But during WWII she was requisitioned for military use, the same day as her sister ship, the SS Cristobal. The Ancon had the most varied wartime career of any American merchantman and was the U.S. Navy’s most famous headquarters and command ship.

The Ancon was assigned to the U.S.A.T.S. (U.S. Army Transportation Service) on January 11, 1942 at Balboa, and sailed immediately for San Francisco and the Bethlehem Steel Co. Yard for a quick conversion into a troopship. Fitted with 1,500 births, she left for Australia with troops. She made two such voyages in February and March. After the second trip, the Ancon went to the Moore Dry Dock Co. at San Francisco for an additional conversion. She was lined with two 5-inch guns, four 40mm and fourteen 20mm anti-aircraft guns.

After that conversion she was commissioned as the USS Ancon. After duty as a troopship, she was converted to the Amphibious Force Flagship (AGC-4). She sailed for North Africa on September 24 1942 and in November of that year she was the flagship at Fédala, French Morocco, and there established her “lucky ship” reputation. On November 11th the transport Joseph Hewes was torpedoed nearby, and Ancon rescued many of her crew. The next day live other transports and a tanker in their vicinity were sunk. Captain Mather of the Ancon ordered the anchor chain cut , and she scooted out to safety at sea, where she spent two days and nights waiting for the harbour to be cleared of sunken ships at nearby Casablanca.

In February 1943 she was reassigned to the Atlantic Amphibious Forces for use as Flagship and was to serve as the nerve centre for the coming Allied amphibious operations that would liberate Europe and Asia. She participated in the invasion of Sicily with General George Patton aboard.

As Flagship Commander of the 8th Fleet Amphibious Forces, Lt. Gen. Mart Clark (commanding the 5th Army) was aboard during the attack on Salerno on the Italian mainland.

She came under fire with 48 air attacks the first day. The cruiser USS Savannah was hit by a radio bomb that penetrated the number three turret forward and penetrated the magazine which exploded. Ancon picked up survivors.

The next day the British battleship HMS Warspite took two direct bits and sank only 400 yards away.

The Germans had singled the Ancon out as an important target, but she eluded them – moving every night. Four days after the invasion started, an Italian submarine surfaced near the Ancon and surrendered. The “Mighty A” put a prize crew aboard with an Italian-speaking electrician as interpreter and took her to Malta.

Ancon later participated in the D-Day landings. From the 6th to the 27th of June 1944, she served as the Flagship of Rear Admiral John L. Hall, Commander of the Assault Forces on Omaha Beach.

The day after Christmas in 1944, Ancon left Charleston, SC en route to the Pacific. Tokyo Rose was reported to have announced that the “Ancon was in the Pacific, and that the gentlemen of Japan would undertake to finish the job that the gentlemen of Germany had failed to do.”

After the bloody battle on Iwo Jima, the landings on Okinawa were expected to be worse.

Ancon played a major role in a relatively easy landing, but she was subject to a number of Kamikazi attacks.

On August 14 Japan offered to surrender. Ancon was assigned the job of press release ship during the landing, surrender and occupation operations at Tokyo Bay.

On the morning of August 29 she rode into Tokyo Bay. On September 2, the men of the Ancon witnessed the formal surrender to the Allied Supreme Commander, Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri.

MacArthur’s words “These Proceedings are closed.” which concluded WWII, were beamed to the world from the Ancon’s antennas

The SS Ancon in her military configuration

Ancon left Tokyo Bay for Yokohama and on December 1 she headed for home, arriving in the New York Navy Yard on January 23 1946. She was decommissioned on February 25 1946 and stricken from the Navy Register on April 17 1946.

By June 12 1947. the Ancon had been restored to “as new” condition, and resumed her pre-war service with Captain Swinson again at the helm. He had been with the Panama Line since 1921 and was the Ancon’s peacetime Captain – having brought her originally to New York from the Quincy Shipyard.

A last look at this noble ship (in pre-war or post-war condition?) ¿Quien sabe?)

The Panama Line was a money-losing operation, and commercial lines resented the Government being in competition. On April 27 1961 the company’s operations ceased. In June of that year the Ancon was transferred to the Maine Maritime Academy, and renamed State of Maine. She was sold in 1973 and scrapped in 1975.

Raymond W. Ireson FRPSC