Private Raymond Keith Lanier was born on 23 June 1924, to Robert Henry Lanier and Jenryetta Crystal Brown in Coalville, Utah. His siblings are Robert Francis, Ruth Mae Lanier Jacobsen, Ralph Henry Lanier, Eugene Brown Lanier, William Selmer, Lanier, Richard David Lanier, Betty Joy Lanier, and Jerry Kenneth Lanier.

Raymond enlisted on January 7, 1943 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He served with the Army Air Forces Aviation, 853rd Engineer Battalion. He was a passenger on the HMT Rohna. The Rohna and four other troop ships left Oran in French Algeria with cargo and troops. Off Béjaïa, Algeria the convoy was attacked by an estimated 60 German Luftwaffe Heinkel 177's. One of the 177's, piloted by Hans Dochtermann, released a glide bomb that hit Rohna on her port side and she eventually sank. Private Lanier was declared lost at sea on November 27, 1943.

Private Raymond Keith Lanier’s cenotaph is located at Memory Grove Memorial in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah, USA. He also has a memorial at the North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage, Tunis, Tunisia, He was awarded The Purple Heart posthumously.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see++ 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 smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.