'No matter how damn old I am'

After Triton Cove resident James Aylesworth turned 100, his niece drove him to the Navy recruiting office in Silverdale, where the World War II veteran offered to re-enlist.

He didn't want to be paid, he explained. He specifically wants to help the Ukrainians fight the Russians in any capacity he can.

"I want to help my country no matter how damn old I am," he said.

The recruiter never followed up with a promised reason for rejecting his offer, Aylesworth said. Since then, he turned 101 and moved on to new goals: walking without a cane by the end of August, taking his motorcycle out for perhaps a final spin. He's also reckoning with COVID.

"I'm trying to get to 125," he said. "I like it here on this earth. The terra firma is good."

For the past 65 years, Aylesworth has lived in a house he built above Triton Cove on Hood Canal, near the Mason/Jefferson County line. But his story begins in Pierce County.

Born in 1921, Aylesworth grew up near the Puyallup River in Tacoma, the oldest of five children.

His father worked at Thornewood Castle, a 54-room mansion at American Lake.

At Lincoln High School, Aylesworth found success boxing at 110 pounds for the school's team. "I was the best," he recalled.

Aylesworth joined the Naval reserve after graduating in 1939. He remembers the reservists gathering for drills on Monday nights on the end of Tacoma's 11th Street pier. He was called up to the Navy full time when the United States entered World War II at the end of 1941 following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.

"I love this country and I've always loved it," he said. "I'd do anything to protect it."

For four years, he served aboard the net tender USS Butternut in the South Pacific. Aylesworth helped install steel cable nets in coves to keep Japanese submarines from entering harbors. He listened to propagandist Tokyo Rose nightly on the radio, even though he knew she was lying. A typical meal was beans, Spam and hydrated eggs.

His ship was in the waters off the island of Okinawa when the Japanese hit a nearby tanker. His captain sent him and two other men from their engine room to the burning tanker.

"It was all burning," Aylesworth recalled. "The gun tubs were going off ... All of these things were going off and everything was red hot and here comes 125 Japanese bombers."

The three men were left on the burning oil tanker as their ship headed off. Inside the burning vessel, they heard cries for help. Metal was chopped to remove the hatch, and the trio rescued three trapped men. One of the men, an older officer, suffered a heart attack on the spot and died. Three decades later, Aylesworth and one of his comrades would reunite with the men they rescued.

Following the end of World War II, Aylesworth spent 29 years working as a civilian at Fort Lewis as the chief of the maintenance division. He built a house next to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and took Bette as his second wife in 1964.

Bette's uncle owned land on Triton Cove. He wanted $5,000 to buy a camper, and for that price he sold part of the property to the Aylesworths, who built their house. Bette died in 2018. He's lived there now for 65 years. His niece, April Munn, stays with him five days a week and is writing down some of his stories.

Aylesworth needs to get his artificial hip replaced. Also, "I got the plague," he said. Nevertheless, "I won't get in a wheelchair. No one's going to get me into a wheelchair. If I fall down and break my neck, so be it."

In the meantime, Aylesworth said he is still waiting to hear from the Silverdale Navy recruiter and the official reason his volunteer re-enlistment was rejected. He said he would even perform paperwork to help the Ukrainians.

"Russia is beating up on a country that doesn't want to fight," he said. "I want to help."

"I think you have the duty to help out no matter what age you are."