Thursday, 4:30 PM
Navy sets decommissioning date for USS John F. Kennedy
(David L. Ryan/Globe Staff file photo)
The USS John F. Kennedy, pictured in Boston Harbor on May 2005, will be decommissioned in March.
By Globe Staff
The 1,050-foot-long aircraft carrier named for President John F. Kennedy will be decommissioned on March 23 after nearly 40 years of patrols and battles, from scrapes with Libyan fighter jets in the Mediterranean Sea to the current war in Iraq.
The ship -- christened the USS John F. Kennedy by the late president's then 9-year-old daughter Caroline in May 1967 -- will make Boston its last port of call. The aircraft carrier will be at the North Jetty in South Boston's Marine Industrial Park from March 1 to 5 for a host of ceremonies which will include a public visiting that Saturday and Sunday, according to Lieutenant Paul Brawley, a Boston-based spokesman for the Navy.
After it is decommissioned, the USS John F. Kennedy will join other mothballed vessels at the Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility in Philadelphia, Penn. That will leave the USS Kitty Hawk as the last fossil-fuel burning aircraft carrier in active use by the Navy.
The USS John F. Kennedy could someday be turned into a museum, Brawley said.
