The last oil-fired Navy aircraft carrier, Kitty Hawk, has departed for its final transit to a ship-breaking facility in Texas.
The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk first arrived in San Diego in the fall of 1961. According to a story from the San Diego Union-Tribune announcing the warship's arrival, there was much fanfare including a swing band and fireboats spraying plumes of water.
The Kitt Hawk spent 37 years in San Diego before spending its last decade in Japan. It was decommissioned in 2009 and spent the next 12 years sitting with other retired ships in Puget Sound, Washington.
According to NavyTimes.com, Kitty Hawk was sold to the Texas ship-breaking company and will have to travel all the way down to South America and back up because it's too large to get through the Panama Canal.
In a tweet on January 15, the U.S. Naval Institute explained that the USS Kitty Hawk was sold to the scrap company for just 1 cent. "For another penny, the company also got USS John F. Kennedy."
According to the Naval Institute, the Kitty Hawk was built for $264 million back in 1961.
The men, and women starting in 1994, who served on the aircraft carrier have been sharing their stories about the ship like Andrew Dyer who recently penned a piece in the Union-Tribune.