“There wasn’t much here except for a few buildings and the flight line,” said 78-year-old James R. Worthington, shaking his head in amazement during a windshield tour of NAS Whidbey Island Aug. 31, 2009.

After 60 years, Worthington returned to the air station while on vacation in the Pacific Northwest with his wife Elaine from their home in Camp Verde, Ariz.

“This was a dream for him to come back here,” said Elaine.

In February 1949, Capt. E. R. Peck was commanding officer of the seven-year-old air station. An 18-year-old Worthington arrived at Ault Field as a seaman, leaving his hometown of Perkasie, Penn. He and his buddies could listen to Perry Como and The Andrew Sisters on the radio. The action war drama “Twelve O’clock High,” starring Gregory Peck, was popular at the movie theater.

Worthington was assigned to a heavy patrol squadron which flew PB4Y2’s, a four-engine bomber.

“The first few months before going to the squadron, a few of us did cleanup of the base,” said Worthington. “The base was overgrown with high grass. Farmers would cut and rake, and we loaded grass on wagons and trucks; the piles were full of snakes and mice.”

What struck him odd about NAS Whidbey at the time was he never saw a house.

“Whidbey was grass, bushes and trees,” Worthington said. “There were a few scattered farms, but never saw a regular house.”

The base was initially commissioned as a temporary station, thus many structures were constructed of wood including the barracks Worthington slept in. A few are still standing and used today for administrative use.

“The water tasted like iron for a couple of months,” he said. The concrete and steel building boom would not begin until around 1952, so seeing the row barracks, Admiral Nimitz Dining Hall and hangars 5 and 6 were all new to Worthington.

“We walked everywhere,” he said. “Most liberty was spent in Seattle; we’d hitchhike in. In Seattle, we stayed at the YMCA for a $1 a night.”

When you play golf at Gallery Golf Course, Worthington was one of the hardworking Sailors who helped build it and the now defunct Skeet Range from scratch. Worthington was impressed to see that the original 9-hole course he worked on is now an immaculate full 18-hole course.

“The course was near where they had machine gun practice with .50 caliber machine guns mounted on a carrier on railroad tracks,” Worthington recalled. “You would fire at targets out in the water, and would stop when salmon fishing boats were out there.”

By November of 1949, Worthington was ready to transfer to Corpus Christi, Texas, but his father became ill requiring him to leave the Navy to take over the family’s milk delivery business.

Worthington is now retired from Mobile Oil Corporation, where he worked as supervisor of vehicle maintenance. He wishes NAS Whidbey Island a happy 67th birthday Sept. 21, and in turn, the air station thanks him for his base contributions and military service to country.