Lyle Mitchell was born in September 1918 in New York. He had a sister and a brother. His sister is two years younger than him. His brother was 10 years younger. His father did not serve in the military. His father worked as a machinist in Rochester, New York. His mother was a clerk in a convenience store. At one time when they had no money at all [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] they printed out strips of paper that were supposed to act as money. There was not any money in 1932, cash was not available. He walked a mile and a half to school. The kids would hang out at a baseball field. Mitchell was a paper boy at the time. His parents and another couple opened a dress store. His mother made the dresses in the front of the store. They went house to house to sell the dresses. Mitchell was visiting family when he heard on the radio about the attack at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Mitchell graduated high school in 1935. After high school, he went to the Rochester Institute of Technology until 1939. He studied mechanical engineering. At that time it was 200 dollars a semester.

Lyle Mitchell met his wife while he was in school at RIT [Annotator’s Note: Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York]. He found a mechanical job after he finished school. He was inspecting gauges for the United States Army. He worked there for a year and a half. When he was working in the ordnance department, he heard about an opening at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]. Mitchell was inducted into the Army. He went to basic training for four days, and then the FBI [Annotator’s Note: Federal Bureau of Investigation] came and told him he would be of better use to his country in Pearl Harbor. He was at Fort Niagara for basic training. He left for Pearl Harbor in February 1943. He had a day off in San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California]. It took 25 days for them to have a boat ready to go to Pearl Harbor. They left San Francisco in a convoy. They were on a small boat.

Lyle Mitchell remembers there were some ships that would never be repaired [Annotator’s Note: he is referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. They were cleaning up all the damage. The USS Arizona [Annotator's Note: USS Arizona (BB-39)] was sunk and they built a memorial over the top. Pearl Harbor covered two or three square miles. Mitchell was a Navy employee. He was assigned to the machine department. The men used a bodyboard to aim the guns. They were about six feet in diameter. They looked like compass faces with all the degrees and markings. Mitchell’s wife was brought to Pearl Harbor after he had been there for six months. His first housing situation before his wife came was an apartment with two rooms and six bunks per room. Then he and a friend rented a house. Next, he moved into an apartment in downtown Honolulu [Annotator’s Note: Honolulu, Hawaii] about two weeks before his wife arrived. He applied for naval housing because they could walk from there to the base. There were four apartments to a unit. They had to buy furniture. He made some out of plywood.

Lyle Mitchell remembers his wife had to work when she was brought to Pearl Harbor [Annotator’s Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii where Mitchell was stationed while serving in the US Navy]. She worked for the Navy labor board, then she worked in the engine shop where Mitchell worked. His wife went on leave to the mainland for about a month. Mitchell bought a camera from the Kodak store in downtown Honolulu [Annotator’s Note: Honolulu, Hawaii]. It was an 8mm movie camera. They took bets on how quickly the war would end after the bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] were dropped. Mitchell had the same job the entire time he was there. A cruiser came in with a destroyed radar and Mitchell was assigned to help repair the radar. He had to climb up on top of the mast and replace the parts. On VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945] they had the day off. They were down by the water. His wife was hit by a wave and taken out in the water. A fisherman noticed them in the water and swam out to them with a log. Then an Army man who came out with a jeep saved them. He swam out with a rope tied to him. His wife had been injured by a coral reef. She had to be treated with penicillin [Annotator’s Note: penicillin came out in 1928, but was not used successfully until 1943]. His wife was allergic to penicillin.

Lyle Mitchell wanted to stay working for the Navy after the war, but they cut his pay. He went back to Rochester [Annotator’s Note: Rochester, New York] after the war. The war ended in August [Annotator’s Note: August 1945]. It was December before they were able to take a ship home. Once back home, Mitchell tried to be a real estate agent. After a few months, he applied to work at Kodak. He worked in a research department developing new products. He helped develop a copy machine that used wet paper. He worked for Kodak until he retired in 1974. He traveled with his wife. They had two children. He showed the pictures on his movie camera to his son. They took the camera to their daughter who worked in New Orleans [Annotator’s Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. They traveled the eastern coast. They did not go cross country. Gasoline was 50 cents a gallon in 1974. Mitchell thinks current events are more important to people than what happened in the past.