IN MEMORIAM

Funeral Mass Planned

For William Kraham, 94;

Decorated Pilot, Lawyer

COOPERSTOWN – A funeral mass is planned for William Rohan Kraham, 94, a decorated bomber pilot during the D-Day invasion who then pursued a legal career specializing in aviation, at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 27, at St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” Catholic Church.

Interment will follow in the Kraham family plot at St. Mary’s Cemetery, Index.

Mr. Kraham, a Cooperstown native and longtime resident of Gaithersburg, Md., died of heart failure on Feb. 23, 2018, at the Charlotte Hall Veterans Home, St. Mary’s County, Md.

Born on May 14, 1923, in Cooperstown, he was the youngest of 12 children of Michael Paul Kraham and Sarah Rohan Kraham, of 24 Elm St.

Mr. Kraham learned to fly at age 16 in a Piper Cub equipped with skis on the snow-covered ice of Otsego Lake. He was a graduate of Cooperstown High School and Cleveland Marshall Law School and attended both Columbia University and the University of Maryland.

He left Columbia University to enlist in the Army Air Corps during WWII, trained as a pilot in Texas and Colorado, was a B-24 Liberator pilot who flew many combat missions to strategic targets in Germany as a decorated member of the 445th Bomb Group stationed in Tibenham, Norfolk, and flew two D-Day missions over Normandy. The Group was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Palm by the French government for operations in the European theater from December 1943 to February 1945.

After the war, he returned to a training command in Florida, retiring as a captain. After retiring from the Air Force, he became a lawyer, was admitted to practice in state and federal courts in Ohio, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, and was a legal adviser and trial counsel for the Federal Aviation Administration, where he specialized in airline and general aviation aircraft accident cases.

After leaving government service, he enjoyed a distinguished law career, including as legal counsel to air traffic controllers and aviation specialists; later in private law practice, he specialized in aircraft and motor vehicle accident cases and medical malpractice cases, and served as an arbitrator.

In his retirement years, Mr. Kraham kept busy with a wide variety of interests, including writing, family genealogy, astronomy and space exploration. He participated as manager of public relations in the restoration of the 1903 Wright Flyer Replica for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the National Park Service at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

He was an avid reader, especially on the topic of history, launched websites, developed new and historical real estate properties, enjoyed golf, both playing and watching the game, and took delight in attending family sporting events. He stayed close in touch with his extended family and led the way in researching family history.

He was preceded in death by a daughter Ann Rohan, who died in 1951; his loving wife of 72 years, Elizabeth Ann Benninghoff, who died on May 24, 2017, and most recently by a son, Robert Martin Kraham, who died on Oct. 14, 2017. William had five brothers (Paul, Robert, John, Charles, and Richard) and six sisters (Mary, Frances, Helen, Kathryn, Gertrude, and Madeline), all of whom preceded him in death.

He was the proud father of two children who survive him, daughter Mary Lynne Hyde and son William E. Kraham. He was a devoted grandfather to 10 grandchildren, Richard and John Fulton; Jesse and Eliza Kraham; Emmy and Geoffrey Hyde; and Seth, Cassie, Matthew, and Shannon Kraham. A loving great-grandfather to Zoe, Kenzie, Sienna, Rylan, Wyatt, and Scarlett.