Donald Meals, who has died aged 102, was a fearless RAF pilot who flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain, and then – to the surprise of his wife, whom he’d told he was popping out to buy pipe tobacco – became a contract killer for the DiFallucci crime syndicate in Las Vegas until his arrest and imprisonment in 1952.
As well as shooting down 60 aircraft of the German Luftwaffe over the skies of southern England in 1941, it is estimated that Meals – who changed his name to Donnie Marcello following his arrival in Nevada in 1945 – personally oversaw the violent murders of more than 1,540 stoolies, no-marks, wetbacks and gleebs who crossed his crime boss employers in the post-war years.
Born in Penrith to strict Presbyterian parents he won his nickname “Ack-Ack” due to his seemingly supernatural ability to avoid exploding anti-aircraft missiles fired at his Spitfire on countless missions over occupied German territory.
The soubriquet “The Fender” was said to be on account of his favoured instrument of execution during his subsequent career.
One former associate, Joey “Dumb Fuck” Durrande, recalled in 1974: “Anyone who messed with him, Donnie would take them into the carpark of the Grand and hit them over the head with the fender from his 1948 Studebaker – the first car that he ever owned in Vegas. When they was dead, he would order me to drive the stiff out into the desert and bury it deep.”
Donald Meals, pilot and mob assassin, was born on July 8 1922. He died on September 13, 2024, in Nevada State Penitentiary
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