SAN DIEGO -- After three decades of service, the USS Anchorage is dropping anchor -- for good.

The San Diego-based Navy ship was decommissioned at Naval Station San Diego Wednesday morning.

The Anchorage served the Navy for 34 years, which includes deployments during the evacuation of Vietnam in 1975, the Gulf War, support for the USS Cole after the terrorist attack in Yemen and, most recently, serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Meanwhile, the decommissioned aircraft carrier Midway was on its way to Northern California today for refitting before being towed to San Diego, where it will serve as a museum.

"This is a big day," John DeBlanc, chairman of the San Diego Aircraft Museum group's governmental relations committee, told The San Diego Union-Tribune. "The Midway is heading our way."

The tugboat Lauren Foss yesterday began pulling the 978-foot-long vessel from its moorings in Bremerton, Wash., to Oakland, where painting, electrical, sanitation and other work will be carried out over the next two months, according to the Union-Tribune.

Officials with the museum group told the newspaper they plan to have the Midway towed to the North Embarcadero's Navy Pier by mid-December.

After placing military aircraft, exhibits and other features aboard the carrier, the nonprofit group plans to open it to the public in April as a floating museum and educational center.

The Midway is expected to arrive at the Charles P. Howard Terminal at the Port of Oakland on Tuesday.

Commissioned Sept. 10, 1945, the Midway saw service throughout the world -- including Southeast Asia and the Persian Gulf -- before it was decommissioned April 11, 1992.