BREMERTON, Wash. -- The oldest active ship in the U.S. Navy, the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier, arrived Tuesday in Puget Sound on its final voyage before decommissioning at Bremerton.

The 47-year-old ship is the Navy's last carrier powered by diesel fuel. It was stationed the past ten years in Japan and was replaced this summer by the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered carrier.

The Kitty Hawk traveled to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and San Diego before arriving in Puget Sound where it was docked in the shipyard about 9 a.m.

It's arriving with a crew of 1,600 that will be drawn down to about 400 by October to prepare the ship for decommissioning early next year.

The ship, commissioned in 1961 and the only forward-deployed aircraft carrier in the Navy, was assigned to Japan in 1998. It has since made 20 deployments in the western Pacific and participated in Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq.

In 1963, the Kitty Hawk served as the "floating White House" for President John F. Kennedy's one-night stay.

Plans for the ship after its decommissioning have not been determined.

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See a photo gallery of the USS Kitty Hawk