End of an era…….

The Navy will have no more conventional carriers.

USS Kitty Hawk decommissioning in Bremerton

About 2,000 people are expected at an invitation-only decommissioning ceremony in Bremerton this Saturday for the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, long known as “America’s Flagship.”

While the public is not invited to the event, at least they’ll know that all those people on the ship’s hangar deck are past crew members, friends and family gathering to honor the legacy of the 47-year old carrier as it leaves the nation’s service. Ceremonies decommissioning the carrier will be held at Naval Base Kitsap’s Pier D.

The conventionally powered carrier, CV-63, was among the first of the nation’s supercarriers and was built in 1961 for $265 million. Named for the North Carolina town where aviation was born, the carrier originally was homeported in San Diego before it was moved to Japan in 1998 as the nation’s only forward operating aircraft carrier.

Kitty Hawk in 1998 relieved the USS Independence, which is now decommissioned and tied up in Bremerton. The USS George Washington last year relieved Kitty Hawk of the job.

Kitty Hawk arrived in Bremerton in September to prepare for decommissioning.

Aircraft from the Kitty Hawk over the decades have been launched into combat in Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. The carrier was the size of a small town, crewed by 2,800 sailors but growing in size to 5,300 when its air wing was aboard. Included among them were EA-68 Prowler electronic warfare jets from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.

It is also the end of an era in that the last of the great old ladies will be gone. Today’s generation that knows only the sameness of the Nimitz class. Better ships to be sure, but lacking the character and uniqueness of the older carrier classes.  Forrestal, Saratoga, Ranger, Indy, Kitty Hawk, Constellation, Enterprise, America and Kennedy-they are all indivudual in their own way. To sail on one was not the same experience as sailing on another. How many of today’s crowd remember Ready Rooms on the second deck? The escalator to the flight deck? Or America’s lack of a dirty shirt forward?

Not to say I have glossy eyed memories-I did more than my fair shair of sweating on those same ships when the AC, chill water, or power went out.  Or got the hear the words , “fire in the box” followed by a swift call to a no lie general quarters.  The ships were old.

But when you were on them you felt a tie to their history-especially since you knew they had all sailed the line on Yankee Station. Today’s Kitty Hawk sailors probably have grandfathers who sailed on her.

So goodbye to the grand old lady and welcome to the brave new world.