Tribute to Raymond Kleiber 1924 – 1943

Raymond died in World War 2 and is James Raymonds’ namesake. Unfortunately we do not have many pictures of Raymond so if anyone has anymore I would love to get them. Most of the stories about Raymond I heard from my Father. My dad used to say that Raymond had the height but not the talent to play professional ball, where as he had the talent but not the height. I have retyped his obituary and included the original clipping which is a little hard to read.

Private Kleiber, a paratrooper was killed in a plane crash on Leyte while enroute to the United States. The Plane was evacuating wounded men from the Pacific, and Kleiber was being returned home for further hospitalization after having suffered head injuries February 28, when he landed with the 503rd parachute infantry on Corregidor. He had been overseas 18 months and during that time had participated in several major battles from New Guinea to the Philippines.

Ray was born in Detroit. He was graduated from the Lincoln Park high school with the January 1943 class and worked for the Great Lakes Steel corporation, Ecorse, before entering the army. Besides his parents, he leaves two brothers, Sergeant Charles in Hawaii and Donald at home, and two sisters, Mrs. Dorothy Sokel and Virginia Kleiber, both living with their parents.

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