Crone was a student at Hobart and William Smith before enlisting in the Army in the spring of 1943, which sent him to Advanced Engineering School at the University of Alabama. A year later, with the war escalating, the U.S. military recruited Crone as an infantry soldier and shipped him to Europe. There he fought in the “Battle of the Bulge,” during which he was captured in the Ardennes forest of Belgium and marched through the December cold into Germany. Crone and another 150 prisoners were shipped in cattle cars to Dresden where they were housed in a meat-packing plant. During this time, Crone became acquainted with fellow soldier Kurt Vonnegut, who would later write the influential anti-war book, Slaughterhouse Five, modeling the main character, Billy Pilgrim, after Crone.
After the bombing in Dresden, the prisoners were put to work clearing the city and digging through rubble for dead bodies. Working on one daily bowl of cabbage gruel and one slice of bread, made mostly of sawdust, many of the prisoners became ill. Crone, who traded his food for small pieces of candy, was bedridden for months. On April 11, 1945, Crone died.
Contribution: Inspiration for character Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Slaughterhouse Five"
Hometown: Rochester, N.Y.
College Activities: Kappa Sigma