Additional information: https://coronadotimes.com/news/2013/11/08/coronado-remembers-medal-of-honor-hero-william-s-willie-cronan/.
https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/william-s-willie-cronan

Lieutenant Commander William "Willie" S. Cronan is a Notable burial at https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/ftrosecrans.asp. He received the Medal of Honor while serving in the U.S. Navy on board the USS Bennington for extraordinary heroism when a boiler exploded on the vessel at San Diego, California, July 21, 1905. Cronan died in 1959.  Cronan was born October 23, 1883, in Chicago, Illinois and after joining the navy was stationed aboard the USS Bennington (PG-4) as a Boatswain's Mate. On July 21, 1905, the USS Bennington was in San Diego, California when a boiler exploded. The combination of the explosion and the scalding steam killed a number of men outright and left others mortally wounded; the final death toll was one officer, Ensign Newman K. Perry and sixty-five men, making it one of the U.S. Navy's worst peacetime disasters. Nearly all of the forty-six who survived had an injury of some sort. Wounded himself, Cronan saved three of his shipmates from drowning, the third, after Cronan escaped from triage. For his actions Boatswain's Mate Cronan was awarded the peacetime Medal on January 5, 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt. He retired with the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the 1940s.  https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/3375.
*The preceding content is not intended as a comprehensive biography, but it highlights their significance as a result of military or civilian distinction, lasting achievements, or association with impactful national events. 

William S. Cronan in Navy uniform, 1910s.

WILLIAM S CRONAN

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