Words at War: Who Dare To Live / Here Is Your War / To All Hands
USS Ancon (AGC-4) was an ocean liner acquired by the United States Navy during World War II and converted to a combined headquarters and communications command ship.
Ancon anchored off Fedhala, French Morocco on November 8 and began lowering her boats at 0533. The first troops were debarked an hour later. During the course of the assault, men on the ship witnessed the sinking of four other transports, and Ancon sent out boats to rescue their survivors. On November 12 the transport headed out and, three days later, put into Casablanca harbor. She got underway on the 15th with a convoy bound for Norfolk.
After a brief pause there, Ancon traveled to Brooklyn, New York for voyage repairs. A brief period of sea trials preceded the ship's loading cargo and troops for transportation to Algeria. She sailed on January 14, 1943 as a member of the Naval Transport Service. The ship reached Oran on the 26th and spent five days discharging her cargo before heading back toward New York City, where she arrived on February 13. On that day, the vessel was reassigned to the Atlantic Fleet Amphibious Forces. On the 16th, Ancon entered the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, to undergo conversion to a combined headquarters and communications command ship. She was redesignated AGC-4 on February 26.
Following the completion of the yard work on April 21, Ancon held trials and exercises in the Chesapeake Bay through May and into early June when she was designated the flagship of the Commander of the Atlantic Fleet Amphibious Forces. The ship got underway for Oran on June 8 with Task Force (TF) 85. The ship had been selected to participate in the invasion of Sicily, and her preparations continued after her arrival at Oran on June 22.
Carrying Rear Admiral Alan G. Kirk, Commander, TF 85, and Lieutenant General Omar Bradley on board, Ancon sailed on July 5 for the waters off Sicily. She reached the transport area off Scoglitti on the 10th and lowered her boats early that morning. Despite enemy fire, the ship remained off Scoglitti providing communications services through the 12th and then got underway to return to North Africa. At the end of a fortnight there, she shifted to Mostaganem, Algeria, on July 29. In mid-August, the vessel moved to Algiers. During her periods in port, she prepared for the upcoming invasion of mainland Italy for which she had been designated flagship for the Commander of the 8th Fleet Amphibious Forces in Northwest African Waters.
On September 6, Ancon got underway for Salerno. During the operation, the ship carried Lieutenant General Mark Wayne Clark who commanded the 5th Army. At 0330 on September 9, the first wave of Allied troops hit the beach. Thereafter, she remained in the transport area, undergoing nearly continuous enemy air harassment, until she moved to Palermo, Sicily, to pick up ammunition to replenish her sister ships. She returned to the area off Salerno on the 15th but, the next day, arrived back in Palermo.
After two weeks in that Sicilian port, Ancon shaped a course for Algiers. She reached that port on October 2 and spent almost six weeks undergoing repairs and replenishment. In mid-November, she set sail for the United Kingdom and, on November 25, arrived in Devonport, England, where she was designated the flagship of the 11th Amphibious Force. An extended period of repairs and preparations for the impending invasion of France kept Ancon occupied through the winter and much of the spring participating in numerous training exercises with other Allied warships. On May 25, King George VI of the United Kingdom and Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery visited the ship.
The preparations culminated on June 5, when Ancon got underway for Baie de la Seine, France. She served as flagship for the assault forces that landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy. Throughout the invasion, the ship provided instructions for forces both afloat and ashore. She transferred various units of the Army command to headquarters ashore and made her small boats available to other ships to carry personnel and materials to the beachhead. On June 27, she got underway to return to England and, the next day, arrived at Portland.
Ancon remained in British waters through late September, when she sailed in a convoy bound for the East Coast of the United States. She reached Charleston, South Carolina on October 9 and was then assigned to the Amphibious Training Command. At the completion of repairs at the Charleston Navy Yard on December 21, the ship got underway for sea trials. Five days later, she shaped a course for the Pacific. On the last day of 1944, the ship transited the Panama Canal and joined the Pacific Fleet. She continued on to San Diego, California, where she arrived on January 9, 1945.
The Groucho Marx Show: American Television Quiz Show - Book / Chair / Clock Episodes
The interviews on the Groucho Show were sometimes so memorable that the contestants became celebrities. More Groucho:
Nature boy health advocate Robert Bootzin; hapless Mexican laborer Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez and his offhandedly comic remarks; a witty housewife named Phyllis Diller; author Ray Bradbury; virtuoso cellist Ennio Bolognini; blues singer and pianist Gladys Bentley; strongmen Jack LaLanne and Paul Anderson; actors John Barbour and Ronnie Schell all appeared as contestants while working on the fringes of the entertainment industry.
Harland Sanders, who talked about his finger-lickin' recipe for fried chicken which he parlayed into the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain of restaurants, once appeared as a contestant. A guest purporting to be a wealthy Arabian prince was really writer William Peter Blatty; Groucho saw through the disguise, stating You're no more a prince than I am because I have an Arabian horse and I know what they look like. Blatty won $10,000 and used the leave of absence the money afforded him to write The Exorcist. No one in the audience knew who contestant Daws Butler was until he began speaking in Huckleberry Hound's voice. He and his partner went on to win the top prize of $10,000. Cajun politician Dudley J. LeBlanc, a Louisiana state senator, demonstrated his winning style at giving campaign speeches in French. General Omar Bradley was teamed with an army private, and Marx goaded the private into telling Bradley everything that was wrong with the army. Professional wrestler Wild Red Berry admitted that the outcomes of matches were determined in advance, but that the injuries were real; he revealed a long list of injuries he had sustained.
Other celebrities, already famous, occasionally teamed with their relatives to win money for charity. Arthur Godfrey's mother Kathryn was a contestant and held her own with Marx. Edgar Bergen and his then 11-year-old daughter Candice teamed up with Marx and his daughter Melinda to win $1,000 for the Girl Scouts of the USA; Fenneman played quizmaster for this segment. Ernie Kovacs, Hoot Gibson, Ray Corrigan, John Charles Thomas, Max Shulman, Sammy Cahn, Joe Louis, Bob Mathias, Johnny Weissmuller, Sam Coslow, Harry Ruby, Liberace, Lord Buckley, Don Drysdale, Tor Johnson, and Frankie Avalon also appeared on the program, among others. Harpo Marx appeared in 1961 to promote his just-published autobiography, Harpo Speaks.
A much-recounted moment centers around a female contestant named Charlotte Story who had borne eleven children. Supposedly, when Marx asked why she had chosen to raise a large family, the contestant replied, I love my husband, to which Marx responded with, I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while! According to the anecdote, the remark was judged too risqué to be aired, and was edited out before broadcast, but the audio of the audience's explosive laughter was used by NBC for years whenever a wild reception was called for in laugh tracks.
No recorded outtake of the exchange exists, and both Marx and Fenneman denied the incident took place. Interviewed for Esquire in 1972, Marx flatly stated I never said that. However, Hector Arce, Marx's ghost writer for his 1976 autobiography The Secret Word Is Groucho recounted the claim as fact, but Arce compiled the 1976 book from many other sources in addition to Marx himself, who was ailing then.