After long weeks full of hope, the official Navy Department message of the death of Robert Baer, hospital apprentice, first class came Saturday to his mother, Mrs. Lucy Baer, Delphi.  The youth had been a prisoner of war of the Japanese since the fall of Manilla, in December, 1941.

    From the facts sent his mother, it is probable that Baer met he death when the Japanese troop ship, on which he was being transferred from a prison camp in the Philippines to the Jap mainland, was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of China.  No word had been received from him in eight months, and the last message received was dated sometime in May, 1944.

    Enlisting in the Navy in October, 1940, Baer received training at Great Lakes, San Diego, and Mare Island, Calif.  He was sent to Cavite, Philippines, where he was stationed at the hospital base in August, 1941.  He would have been 23 years old this past May 8.

    Survivors include the mother, the father John Baer of Ft. Wayne: two brothers, Harry of Delphi and Raymond, hospital technician, stationed at the navel hospital, Bethesda, Md.

Obituary notice taken from the Delphi Citizen, Thursday, June 28, 1945