“One of my good friends Jim Winslow...he was on the list, that he had gotten killed during the explosion...He had taken my fire watch.... He was gone and I was still around.” - Gunner's Mate Seaman John E. Mitchell
“At the time, I was in the ships armory office where I worked out of...we took care of the magazines, 
rocket magazines, anything thing to do with the ship, and small arms,” John E. Mitchell recalled while speaking to a United States Navy Memorial Film Crew at the USS Leyte CV-32 Association Reunion in the fall of 2012. Mitchell was a young sailor aboard the USS Leyte CVA- 32 while the ship was being converted to an antisubmarine carrier in Charlestown Naval Shipyard in Boston Massachusetts. What was supposed to be a routine reclassification of the Leyte; turned into a deadly chain of events.
Mitchell remembered that day in October like it was yesterday…“That day I had stood a fire watch…and we were down in the office below the mess deck and when the explosion happened we were spun around and we tried to get above decks.” Through the confusion, Mitchell and other members of the crew stuck to their training and remained calm in the face of danger. Unknown to Mitchell at the time was the extent of the damage and loss of human life that resulted from an explosion in the port catapult machinery room.
The explosion sent fire and smoke to the surrounding corridors making a fast exit very difficult. Mitchell stated that,” Six of us ended up in a little machine shop. We were there for about three to four hours...until someone came and got us.” Also unknown to Mitchell was that one of his friends, who took his watch that day, had been killed in the explosion. “One of my good friends Jim Winslow, he was on the list; he had gotten killed during the explosion...He had taken my fire watch.... That was the biggest experience that I had. At the time I didn't realize how big it was. He was gone and I was still around to continue.” Mitchell would speak of the cleanup efforts and more in his three part interview focused on his Leyte service.
The United States Navy Memorial honors Gunner's Mate Seaman John E. Mitchell, featured within a new series titled, Tales from the Navy Log, Story of the Month. Each month, this series honors a Veteran’s story recorded by the Stories of Service Program at the Navy Memorial. To learn more about this story and to explore the Navy Memorial Tales From The Navy Log Archive, visit the Navy Memorial Stories of Service site.