During the patrol, the destroyer vibrated abnormally because of a screw damaged soon after she got underway when a bomb explosion near her starboard quarter threw her stern into a buoy. Late on the afternoon of 8 December, Aylwin followed the Enterprise task force into Pearl Harbor and picked up Rodgers and the division commander, CDR. R. S. Riggs, on the way into the channel. The next day, Aylwin got underway and conducted antisubmarine patrols in sector 2, off the entrance to Pearl Harbor. She made a sound contact on 10 December. After going to general quarters, she dropped a five-charge pattern, but with no confirmed damage. Entering Pearl Harbor again on the 11th, Aylwin underwent repairs to her damaged propeller. On 12 December, after the smoke over Oahu had cleared, CDR. Rodgers heaped praise on his abbreviated crew for their actions in the first flush of war: "The conduct of the personnel was magnificent.... Every man more than did his job and was eager to fight." Of Ensign Caplan, Rodgers wrote, "The conduct (of this man) ... in superbly taking command for 36 hours during war operations of the severest type is a most amazing and outstanding achievement." Aylwin sortied as part of the Lexington task force headed to relieve Wake Island on 14 December. Along with the heavy cruisers Chicago and Portland and the destroyer , she took station ahead of Lexington. The next day, destroyers Dewey and Worden, the cruiser Indianapolis, and the oiler Neosho joined the force. Two Japanese carriers had joined the forces attacking Wake. This move prompted cancellation of the relief attempt. Wake fell on 23 December. After investigating several suspected submarine contacts en route, Aylwin covered the arrival of TF 11 at Pearl Harbor three days after Christmas. On the last day of 1941, Aylwin sortied from Pearl Harbor in the screen of a convoy taking evacuees from the Hawaiian Islands to the west coast where she served five days into 1942. 1942 Aylwin then underwent repairs and alterations in the Mare Island Navy Yard until 10 January, receiving new 20-millimeter machine guns to increase her close-in antiaircraft capability. Two days later, she sailed with to escort the liners President Coolidge, President Monroe, and Mariposa to San Francisco. Underway again on the 17th, Aylwin and Perkins escorted a convoy consisting of , , , and back to Oahu where they arrived on the