A new Navy combat ship will be named after the city of Kingsville, the U.S. Navy recently announced in the Coastal Bend city. The USS Kingsville is an independence-variant littoral combat ship designed to support anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare missions, and focused mine countermeasures.
The Kingsville media conference was the first one ever held by Mayor Sam Fugate, who has been in the position for 15 years.
“It’s a good news story for our community and for the Navy,” he said at the announcement. “It demonstrates our partnership and how important the Navy is to Kingsville and Kingsville to the Navy.”
Kingsville is home to Naval Air Station Kingsville, one of the Navy’s premier locations for jet aviation training. Its primary mission is to train student-aviators for both the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. Also trained in Kingsville are tactical jet pilots for select NATO and Allied countries.
The base was commissioned in July 1942 as a Naval Auxiliary Air Station, one of three advanced air-trainings in the naval air training command. It served as an auxiliary field to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi until it became NAS Kingsville in August 1968. It is the headquarters of Training Air Wing Two.