Sergeant Ramon R. Allen was from a prominent Salt Lake City family. His father, Wilford J. Allen, was a supervisor with Salt Lake City Lines transportation company, and his brother, W. Douglas Allen, was a city judge in Murray. His mother was the former Maud E. Bliss.

Sergeant Allen died at age 20 in the worst loss of life from a single bombing of an Allied ship during the war. A member of the 853rd Engineer Battalion, he was a passenger on the British transport ship HMT (His Majesty’s Transport) Rohna, when it was heavily damaged by a guided bomb from a German aircraft in the Mediterranean on November 26, 1943. More than 1,000 died, 300 in the initial blast and the rest from fires or drowning. The final toll was 1,015 American GIs, 120 British and Indian crewmembers, 11 gunners and three Red Cross workers. He was one of 14 men from Utah who died in the sinking.

He had six brothers, three of whom served in World War II and survived, and two sisters. He was born March 15, 1924 in Salt Lake City, attended Granite High School, and worked on a ranch in Juab County before joining the Army in January 1943.

Sergeant Allen’s body was not recovered. He is honored on the Tablets of the Missing in the North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial in Tunisia, and with markers in the Salt Lake City Cemetery and the Memory Grove Memorial in Salt Lake.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (www.storiesbehindthestars.org .) This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

https://www.history.com/news/a-calamity-at-sea-70-years-ago

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/183930377/ramon-r_-allen

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56245293/ramon-r_-allen

https://www.findagrave./memorial/131574628/ramon-r-allen

Sergeant ramon R. Allen

Sgt. Allen's marker in Salt Lake City Cemetery

Sgt. Allen's marker in Salt Lake City Memory Grove Memorial

Ramon R Allen