Donald Marsaglia was born in Coal City, Illinois in April 1924. Coal City was a small town of about 1,300 people. Marsaglia went to a parochial school and had to sign up for the draft immediately following high school. He worked a few jobs after high school: at a wallpaper mill, a hardware store, and an open pit mine where he took samples of coal to determine its quality. He worked at the mine for a while until he was drafted. He went to Morris, Illinois which was the county seat of Grundy County. From there, Marsaglia went to Chicago [Annotator’s Note: Chicago, Illinois] and enlisted. He went in on 21 June 1942, the same day as his uncle. Marsaglia had dinner at his mother’s house that day. His uncle went to and returned home from the European front. Marsaglia went to Camp Grant [Annotator’s Note: Rockford, Illinois] from where he was sent to Truax Field in Madison, Wisconsin to train to be a pilot. Marsaglia’s mother did not want him to enter the United States Army Air Force, but he did so anyway. From Truax, he went to Miami Beach, Florida for basic training. The heat was unbearable in their ODs [Annotator’s Note: referring to thir uniforms which were the color olive crab], and Marsaglia remembers watching his fellow soldiers pass out in front of him. He was then sent to the University of North Carolina in Raleigh, North Carolina and acquired ten hours of flying. After he graduated from there, he went to Nashville, Tennessee where the Air Force gave him aptitude tests. Marsaglia tried to fail the exam in order to be turned away. He did this to make his mother happy, as she did not want him to be in the Air Force. The next day his scores showed that he passed. He called his mother and told her that he tried to fail the exam, but his mother told him that she had his blessing to do the best he could. From Nashville, he went to Alabama for about three to four months. There he qualified to become a bombardier. At this point, Marsaglia had to choose between bombardier or regular infantry duty. After Alabama, he went to a school in Georgia for secondary pilot training. Before his next stop he was given leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to visit his family. In one outing in Chicago, he was in a bar and was refused service because the bartender thought he was not old enough. A man standing next to Marsaglia recognized his service uniform and told the bartender, “Hell, he is old enough to fight in the Army, he is old enough to have a beer.”

Donald Marsaglia’s next stop was Deming, New Mexico where bombardiers and dead reckoning navigators [Annotator’s Note: navigation based on calculations of time, speed, distance, and direction] were trained. He practiced bombing on an AT-11 [Annotator's Note: Beechcraft AT-11 Model 18 trainer aircraft]. Marsaglia graduated as a flight officer in 1944, and was sent to Fresno, California to join his B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] crew. There, Marsaglia met his pilot, co-pilot, navigator, waist gunner [Annotator’s note: manned the machine guns in the midpoint or waist of the plane], radio operator, Sperry ball gunner [Annotator’s Note: the ball shaped gun turret on the underside of the plane], and the top turret gunner. The Army gave the crew a choice of places to undergo additional training. Marsaglia was told not to put down his preferred location, and instead listed it last. Marsaglia’s desire was to go to Riverside, California and that is where he ended up for training. There they flew practice bombing missions in the nearby Mojave Desert [Annotator’s Note: a desert in the Southwestern United States, mostly in California and Nevada, with small portions in Utah and Arizona]. The missions were called 20-20-20 for 20,000 feet, 20 bombs, and 20 degrees below zero. The crew then traveled to Salinas, California where they received their .45 sidearms [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol]. Marsaglia also received a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine]. From Salinas they traveled to San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California] where they stayed for a couple of weeks. The Air Force was ferrying B-24’s from the United States, so Marsaglia flew in someone else’s plane to Hawaii. They had to carry a 500-gallon tank of gasoline in their bomb bay, but due to the planes’ climb through the air it started to spill gasoline. On their approach to Hickam Field [Annotator’s Note: in Hawaii] their pilot, Lieutenant Blanchard, told the air control tower that despite the runway’s closure they were landing there anyway, as they did not have enough fuel to keep flying. Marsaglia’s crew managed to land safely despite one of their engines going out as they landed. The crew stayed in Hawaii for two days, then took off for Johnson Island [Annotator’s Note: Johnson Atoll, a Pacific territory of the United States] and then to Tarawa [Annotator’s Note: Tarawa, Republic of Kiribati].

Donald Marsaglia’s crew landed in Biak [Annotator’s Note: Biak, Indonesia] right after a Japanese air raid. They left the B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] they had been flying in Biak. They took a C-47 [Annotator’s Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain military air transport] to Nadzab, New Guinea. There Marsaglia joined the 65th Bombardment Squadron, 43rd Bombardment Group, Fifth Air Force. They served under General George Kenney [Annotator’s Note: General George C. Kenney, command of the Army Air Force in the Southwest Pacific Area], and were known as “Ken’s Men”. They did some jungle survival training with the Ozzies [Annotator’s Note: Australians]. Marsaglia flew five total missions out of New Guinea. The places he flew to were inside of New Guinea such as Wiwak and Finchhaven. They primarily targeted Japanese air bases. As bombardier, Marsaglia was responsible for dropping the bombs out of the plane. He would wake up early in the morning, have his briefing, get breakfast, and then have another briefing. Within two hours of waking up and finding out their mission, the crew would be taking off. They left New Guinea for Clark Field in the Philippines. Marsaglia’s crew did what they could to add amenities to make their stay more comfortable. Philippine girls would do their laundry for them, cleaning it by pounding the clothes with rocks in the river and then starching the clothes. Their missions out of Clark Field were to Formosa [Annotator’s Note: modern day Taiwan, then under Japanese occupation] where they bombed many seaports and refineries. On one such mission, Marsaglia’s plane flew into a cloud, and upon exit completely lost track of one of the allied planes. Marsaglia later found out that this other plane emergency landed their B-24 at a Japanese air field. The Japanese took the crew prisoner and executed them by machine gun. Anti-aircraft fire was common and Marsaglia’s plane flew through it often. On one such occasion, shrapnel from anti-aircraft fire entered and exited the plane where he had been sitting just seconds prior, narrowly avoiding potentially fatal injury. After that, Marsaglia took multiple precautions to protect himself from enemy fire. He flew about seven or eight missions. They then moved to Ie Shima [Annotator’s Note: Ie Shima, Japan], off the coast of Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan].

Donald Marsaglia flew 25 missions [Annotator’s Note: serving with the 65th Bombardment Squadron, 43rd Bombardment Group, Fifth Air Force] in World War 2, and the last of his missions were from Ie Shima [Annotator’s Note: Ie Shima, Japan]. He flew missions to Hong Kong [Annotator’s Note: Hong Kong, China] and Japan from Ie Shima. On his 24th mission, Marsaglia’s crew flew to Usa, Japan and dropped their bombs at noon. They did not expect much anti-aircraft fire for that mission, but were surprised by the amount that the Japanese threw at them. Marsaglia’s plane turned from Usa and went over the body of water [Annotator’s Note: the Kanmon Straits] between Honshu and Kyushu [Annotator’s Notes: two of the four main Japanese islands]. This forced them to fly towards Nagasaki where the pilot informed them that there was a cloud that was too large to avoid. Marsaglia later found out that on this day, 9 August 1945, was when the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on Japan [Annotator’s Note: over Nagasaki] and they had flown through the fallout left from it. He kept in contact with his crew through the years and none of them had health defects from the close proximity to the fallout. Marsaglia liked the B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] despite other pilots having complaints about it. The Army tried to get him and his crew to switch to a newer plane in Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan]. Despite being a brand new plane, the crew stuck with their B-24.

Donald Marsaglia had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to be sent home immediately at the end of the war. He did not fly back with his crew, and instead flew with another crew. They departed Ie Shima [Annotator’s Note: Ie Shima, Japan] for Clark Field [Annotator’s Note: Luzon, Philippines] to Guam. From Guam, they traveled to Kwajalein [Annotator’s Note: Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands] to Hawaii and then back to the mainland United States. When he got back, he had to return his guns and the new boots he had just gotten. While returning his .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] he warned them that it was well used, because he had acquired a case of ammunition for himself and practiced shooting it every morning. Marsaglia laments that war is no fun, and those who did not go did not miss anything. He had a job to do, and he followed his orders. He recalls a scouting mission where they went to China to do reconnaissance regarding the weather conditions, as the following day they were to bomb Hong Kong [Annotator’s Note: Hong Kong, China]. They were allowed ammunition to bomb any targets of interest. As they were flying over the Pescadores Islands [Annotator’s Note: Pescadores Islands, Taiwan] in the China Sea, they spotted a ship in dry dock. Marsaglia dropped two bombs, but both narrowly missed the boat on either side. As they continued the mission, they spotted a tank farm where gas and oil tanks were stored. Marsaglia told his pilot to drop their altitude and increase their speed. He did not miss this time and succeeded in hitting the gas tanks, causing a massive explosion. Marsaglia thought the crew would receive a commendation for eliminating the target, but did not. He entered and left the Army Air Force with the rank of flight officer, equivalent to a lieutenant. [Annotator’s Note: Marsaglia removes the microphone and the interview ends.]