PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune About 1,650 crew members were aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk as it began what will probably be its final cruise yesterday. Also aboard were former crew members including Gary Jaynes (below), whose first voyage aboard the massive ship was in 1961.

PEGGY PEATTIE / Union-Tribune

“The ship was literally empty,” said Jaynes, 69, who now lives in Cardiff. “We ran into one of the worst storms ever to hit the East Coast. We were rolling around like a cork.”

Nearly half a century later – and 45 years after he left the Navy – he's back aboard the Kitty Hawk for what probably will be its final cruise.

Jaynes was one of 65 Kitty Hawk veterans who joined a shrunken crew of 1,650 yesterday as the ship shoved off from North Island Naval Air Station, the ship's home base for more than three-quarters of its 47-year career.

“It will be very nostalgic for them,” said Capt. Todd Zecchin, the ship's decommissioning skipper. “They're coming back to something they've been away from for a long time.”

The Navy's longest-serving aircraft carrier is headed for Bremerton, Wash., where shipyard workers will strip its useful gear in preparation for long-term storage. The ship is scheduled to be decommissioned early next year.

The Kitty Hawk pulled away from its pier without fanfare: no brass bands, no cheering, no banners and balloons. Just a few misty-eyed veterans waving goodbye. The haze-gray sky matched their somber mood.

“There's a tear running down my cheek,” said retired Rear Adm. Denny Wisely, 67, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a former fighter pilot who launched 350 Vietnam War combat missions during seven years aboard the Kitty Hawk. “You see a ship like this going away, and it's sad.”

Jaynes and the other Kitty Hawk vets expect a bittersweet cruise before the ship reaches Bremerton on Tuesday. The voyage reunites him with two of his closest Navy buddies, Glenn Gipson of San Bernardino and Howie Drourr of Bradenton, Fla.

All three were members of the commissioning crew – “plankowners,” in Navy parlance – who worked together on the ship's surface-to-air missile systems.

“We had a button that controlled the firing of the missiles,” said Gipson, 68. “I was sweating bullets. I didn't want to start World War III.”

The Kitty Hawk originally was supposed to pass through San Diego in early July, but a fire aboard the carrier George Washington – slated to replace the Kitty Hawk in its most recent home port, Yokosuka, Japan – delayed the handoff for two months. After $70 million worth of repairs, the George Washington left for the Far East on Aug. 21.

Even on short notice, the three Navy buddies said they wouldn't have missed this trip.

“When they assured us it was on, my bags were packed, and I was ready to go,” Gipson said.

“It's a chance to recapture our youth,” said Drourr, 67. “We were 20 years old. We didn't understand the historical significance of what we were doing.”

The Kitty Hawk's long-term future isn't clear. A group in Wilmington, N.C., hopes to bring the ship there as a museum piece, like the Midway in San Diego. The 800-member Kitty Hawk Veterans Association is hoping that happens.

“Just looking at her now, she's still a great ship,” said Jerry Warren, 67, of West Seneca, N.Y., the association's vice president. “Just older.”

Steve Liewer: (619) 498-6632; steve.liewer@uniontrib.com