Military background:
Enlistment date unknown
1941 - Battery F, 101st Field Artillery, Yankee Division, United States Army
October 1941 - posted at Fort Bragg, NC
March 1942 - posted at Hamilton, MA (shore patrol)
1942 - Battery F became Battery C, 212th Field Artillery, United States Army
November 1942 - assigned to 543 E.R.A. 1 Batt., Camp Carrabelle, FL
January 1943 - assigned to 314th, Bombardment Squadron (M), Army Air Forces
February 1943 - posted at MacDill Field, U. S Army Air Forces, Tampa, FL
May 1943 - assigned to newly formed 585th Bomb Squadron, 394th Bomb Group
July 1943 - posted at Ardmore Army Air Base, Ardmore, OK
September 1943 - posted at Army Air Base, Kellogg field, Battle Creek, MI
September 1943 - posted at Army Air Field, Columbus, IN
October 1943 - posted at Army Air Base, Kellogg Field, Battle Creek, MI
February 15, 1944 - Travels on a troop train with most of his outfit from Kellogg Field to Camp Miles Standish, Taunton, MA
February 27, 1944 - Departs Camp Miles Standish on U.S. Army Transport, George W Goethals at Boston Port of Embarkation
March 9, 1944 - Disembarks at Greenock, Scotland
March 10, 1944 - Train arrives at Chelmsford, Essex, England, posted at Boreham Air Base (The base was built in 1943-1944 and had one of the briefest operational careers of any base. It became the home of the 394th Bomb Group flying B-26s between March and July 1944, when they moved to Holmsley South.)
July 1944 - posted at Holmsley South Air Base, Hampshire

Excerpt from Bridge Busters, by J. Guy Ziegler

"The three-day period, for which the group was later to receive the Distinguished Unit Citation, opened on the 7th, with a morning mission after a railroad bridge at Nogent-sur-Siene, France. As the formation made land-fall (emerging from the English Channel and crossing the enemy coast), intense, accurate flak was encountered, causing the loss of three ships. Pilots of the planes were Major Clinton Lee, 1st Lt. Donald Ihie, and 2nd Lt. Benjamin Lowell. All the men on Major Lee's plane were missing in action. Besides Major Lee were Captain Bjarne Tangen, 2nd Lts., Richard Parsons and Arthur Thornton, T/Sgt. Frank Drapola, S/Sgts. Albert Kahler and Donald Short, and Sgt. John Waite, Jr."

Donald, with his crew mates, is buried in Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky