CRANER, ROBERT ROGER
Deceased 10/03/80

Name: Robert Roger Craner
Branch/Rank: UNITED STATES AIR FORCE/O5
Unit: 416 TFS 37th TFW PACAF
Date of Birth: circa 1933
Home City of Record: COHOES NY
Date of Loss: 12 DECEMBER 1967
Country of Loss: NORTH VIETNAM
Loss Coordinates: 175700 North  1061700 East
Status (in 1973): Returnee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F100F #4005
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident:
Refno: 0943

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File. Updated 2000 with information from classmate, Joe
Barry and Assistant Archivist at Holy Cross College, Ms. Jo-Anne Carr.
Craner graduated from Holy Cross in 1976.  EDITED BY REQUEST 07/2005.
2020

REMARKS:  RETURNED 3/14/73 NOT ON ORIG DIA LIST

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The Knickerbocker News, Albany, NY
Feb 21, 1974

Metroland POWs after year of Freedom:
All stay in service as student or teacher
By Carol Schlageter Chady

" A year ago right now we were filled with the joy of hope and the agony of
fear," said Mrs. Loyal Goodermote of Berlin, recalling the wait for their
son's name to be announced as a homecoming Vietnam prisoner of war.....

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Times Union
Albany, NY
May 26, 1974

by Donna HALVORSEN

EX-POW recalls mates in park dedication talk

Former prisoner of war, Robert R. Craner accepted the dedication of Craner
Park in Cohoes Saturday "in the name of all those living and dead whom you
really honor.".....

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Ten Outstanding Seniors Look to the Future
Holy Cross Crossroads,
June 1976

AMONG THE 590 Holy Cross graduates there are many who have already
accomplished much or who have interesting plans for the future.
                                                                       

One is a 43-year old Colonel in the U.S. Air Force who was repatriated in
1973 following five and a half years as a prisoner-of-war in North Vietnam.
Another is the first outstanding woman athlete at Holy Cross. A third is a
champion  male speed skater who holds the North American record for the
quarter mile.

-----------

* Col. Robert R. Craner, Cohoes, N.Y. a 43-year-old career Air Force
officer, will  begin a two-year assignment as military attache with the
American Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, after further training in Washington,
D.C. Col.  Craner spent the last two and a half years at Holy Cross,
majoring in Russian studies. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was
graduated summ cum laude.

An F-100 jet fighter pilot, during the Vietnamese conflict, he was shot down
over North Vietnam in 1967. The first three years were spent in solitary
confinement, with periodic beatings and interrogations by his captors.
During this time he communicated with other prisoners-of-war by tapping on
the walls and leaving notes hidden in the water hole where the prisoners
were taken once a week to wash. "I had a great friend in the next room,"
said Col. Craner. " I never saw him but it was the closest relationship I've
ever had.

For his military exploits, Col. Craner has won three Silver Stars, the
Legion of Merit, four Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts, the Distinguished
Flying Cross, eight Air Medals and the Air Force Commendation Medal.

=======================================

OCT 8 1980

         Col. Robert Craner, was Vietnam prisoner of war

ARLINGTON, VA. - Full military honors were accorded at Arlington National
Cemetery today for Air Force Col.  Robert R. Craner 47, the Vietnam Prisoner
of War - after whom the former Devlin Street Park in Cohoes is named.

Col. Craner died suddenly Friday at Arlington County Hospital in Arlington.....

The article is believed to be from a [Troy], New York Newspaper

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Soldier's experience part of TV movie
By: Robert Cristo, The Record05/12/2005

COHOES - Twenty-five years after his death, the five years of brutal torture
city native Robert Craner endured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam will be
remembered as part of a television movie based on the life of fellow POW
Sen. John McCain......