Ricardo R. Rondinelli was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in April 1924. During the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], his family struggled quite a bit even though his father had a job as an auto salesman. His mother made all his clothes. They always had enough to eat and found ways to be happy. His father had a car and he drove the family around often. Before World War 2 broke out, Rondinelli attended school. He graduated from high school and then attended one year of college. He was then accepted as an aviation cadet in January 1942. He had to go to seminars that were in English, and he only spoke Spanish at the time. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 0:01:57.000.] He enlisted at Borinquen Field in Puerto Rico, and was then sent to the United States for basic training in Nashville, Tennessee. He completed his preflight training at Maxwell Field, Alabama, and primary flight school in Albany, Georgia. He learned how to fly in a PT-17 biplane [Annotator’s Note: Boeing PT-17 Stearman]. Rondinelli then completed basic flight training and advanced flight training to receive his commission as an officer. He was then sent to Colorado to train in flying B-25s [Annotator’s Note: North American B-25 Mitchell]. He was then transferred to Columbus, Georgia to meet and train with his crew. They were designated for the Pacific. They boarded a troop train that took them to Englewood, Florida, which was a top-secret field at the time, so he was restricted to the base during his stay. His crew trained as a torpedo squadron. After two months, they were shipped to Savannah [Annotator’s Note: Savannah, Georgia] where he received a brand-new airplane. He flew the airplane to Sacramento, California and when the weather conditions were good, flew to Hawaii. He took gunnery training, and then was transferred to the Gilbert Islands and assigned to the 47th Bombardment Squadron, 41st Bombardment Group, Seventh Air Force as a replacement pilot. Rondinelli flew different models of the B-25 throughout his deployment, but the planes were similar in function.

Ricardo R. Rondinelli was sent to Makin Island in the Gilbert Islands and assigned to the 47th Bombardment Squadron, 41st Bombardment Group, Seventh Air Force as a replacement pilot. There, he continued to train and fly small bombing missions to the island of Nauru to neutralize the Japanese airfield and chemical plants. His mission was to carry out low level bombings. His squad lost one crew while they were on one of these missions. After 10 months [Annotator’s Note: October 1944], his group was sent back to Hawaii to prepare to support troops on Okinawa [Annotator’s Note: Okinawa, Japan]. Because the Japanese soldiers were entrenched on the island, it took a long time to neutralize the island. Because his group had more crews than airplanes, he had to live on a ship stationed in Buckner Bay, Okinawa and waited for weeks until the island was secured. He was exposed to kamikazes during this time. His ship was never hit but came close at times. As the Americans were able to secure Okinawa, American planes also took advantage of the sky. They put up screens for the Japanese, which stopped kamikaze attacks. Once Okinawa was considered secure, Rondinelli and his unit came on shore to set up camp and began making alterations to the airstrip. At first, the pilots took off and landed on a Marston Mat runway, made of metal mats that interlock. He missions were to bomb hangars, airfields, and military complexes in different areas of Japan and China. Towards the end of the war, his planed used rockets as fire power.

Ricardo R. Rondinelli and his unit [Annotator’s Note: 47th Bombardment Squadron, 41st Bombardment Group, Seventh Air Force] were stationed at the airfield on Okinawa, Japan. On one of his missions, one of the planes hit a tree because they were flying so low to hit a target, which was common for his type of missions. They often had F4U planes [Annotator’s Note: Vought F4U Corsair] for support on bombing missions. On another mission, Rondinelli claimed to shoot down two Zekes [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, referred to as the Zeke or Zero]. On another occasion, after a typhoon had just passed, he was on another mission to bomb Japan. The weather conditions were horrible, and the turbulence was awful which made the planes fly out of formation. All a sudden, something hit Rondinelli’s fuel line, and he began to lose fuel rapidly. He went down in altitude and decided to ditch into the sea. After he landed his plane in the water, the crew began to evacuate out of the plane. They discovered their raft had floated away. Rondinelli was somehow able to find the auxiliary raft. Six men climbed into a four-person raft while the plane sunk within three or four minutes after landing. They begin to drift towards the Japanese island because of the windy weather conditions. Rondinelli saw two sharks swim by them. Finally, they saw a PBM [Annotator’s Note: Martin PBM Mariner] coming in their direction. After they signaled their location to the plane, the pilot made a bad landing and damaged the plane. The pilot decided to taxi the plane back to shore and called for support to rescue Rondinelli and his crew. After 20 hours, he boarded a sea plane tender and spent the night. The next morning, they were treated royally. They were given slippers and food. When they finally got back to their base, everyone was surprised to see him and his crew because they thought they were dead. He learned that all the guys took his stash of goodies and split it amongst each other. He eventually got it all back and began flying missions again a week later.

Ricardo R. Rondinelli and his unit [Annotator’s Note: 47th Bombardment Squadron, 41st Bombardment Group, Seventh Air Force] were stationed at the airfield on Okinawa, Japan. Towards the end of the war, the Japanese fighter planes had dwindled to almost none and the only resistance he saw on his missions was flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. On one mission when Rondinelli had to ditch his plane, a PBM [Annotator’s Note: Martin PBM Mariner] came to his crew’s aid. Years later, this story was published in the Associated Press (AP) news service. Rondinelli is so thankful that the PBM saw them drifting in the water. The whole crew prayed for help because they were floating in a four-man raft in the middle of the pacific drifting toward the Japanese coast with no provisions. Rondinelli thought that the B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] was a very rugged and safe airplane. On his last mission, he considered it a milk run [Annotator's Note: slang term used by American airmen to describe an easy combat mission]. After a mission when crews returned to the base, they were debriefed about their mission. Planes had cameras that took pictures during the bombing missions. He ran one of his last missions on 9 August 1945, the same day that the United Stated dropped the second atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. On his way back from his mission, he saw a hundred miles away a spectacular view of the atomic bomb. After the war, Rondinelli, his Korean friend, and a few other guys requisitioned a B-25 and flew to Japan and then to Seoul, South Korea for a few days. After they returned to Okinawa, he was shipped home. He arrived at Camp Blanding, Florida and sent a message to his parents, and then flew to Borinquen Field in Puerto Rico to reunite with his family.

Ricardo R. Rondinelli returned to his hometown in Puerto Rico after his overseas deployment in the Pacific. A week later, he went to Stanford University in California. When he first got back to civilian life, he felt like he had combat fatigue and had some difficulty assimilating back into society. He felt like he had lost four years of his life and just wanted some time to catch up again. The world was a disaster after the war, and new problems arose four years later. He thought World War 2 unified Americans who became very patriotic for the country. He thought the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] was a tremendous benefit for the veterans because it allowed people to move up economically. Rondinelli believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations because so many Americans do not know the sacrifice that it took to win the war.