Below is a brief story followed by August 10th funeral details for MIA Luther E. “Buck” Bagley, one of 2,500 replacements to the WW II 5307th Composite Unit Provisional, nicknamed Merrill’s Marauders. If you plan to attend the funeral services, please email Jonnie Clasen at clasenjonnie@gmail.com.
The funeral for Luther E. “Buck” Bagley, a 1944 MIA Merrill’s Marauder replacement whose remains were confirmed in May, will be August 10, 2024, in his Fitzgerald, GA hometown, according to his son, Nathan “Woody,” Bagley.
August 10th was selected for the funeral, said “Woody” because that was the important day in 1944 when the 5307th Composite Unit Provisional, commonly known as Merrill’s Marauders, disbanded in Burma.
“Buck” was among the first of around 2,500 replacements to the 5307th CUP flown into northern Burma’s Myitkyina airfield after it was seized May 17, 1944, by approximately 200 remaining Marauders still capable of combat.
While fighting valiantly to seize the town of Myitkyina and hold the airfield, “Buck” was Killed in Action July 25, 1944, barely more than two weeks before the unit disbanded.
The military is relentless in its efforts to identify MIAs. And “Woody” learned in May that DNA he had provided years ago to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) was instrumental in identifying his father’s remains.
Had “Buck” lived, he and the other replacements alongwith about 100 remaining Merrill’s Marauders would have become the 475th Infantry Regiment which would later be known as Mars Task Force.
“Woody” was an 11-month-old baby when his 19-year-old mother, Eleanor, was notified where she was working as a Rosie the Riveter in the Savannah shipyards that Buck had been killed in action at age 22.
And in the 80th year of “Buck’s” death, it was her son, “Woody,” who visited his mother, Eleanor Stark, in Pembroke, GA to tell her “Buck” was finally coming home.
Although Eleanor remarried and has three wonderful daughters, she said “Buck” was “the great love of my life. I have never given up hope that he would come home. And now it’s happening.”
FUNERAL DETAILS
The family has chosen a morning service due to Georgia’s high summer temperatures.
Paulk Funeral Home
301 South Main St.
Fitzgerald, GA 31750
229 423-2022
Family Visitation ………………………………… 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM
General Visitation ………………………………… 8:30 AM to 10:30 AM
Proceed to cemetery for graveside service between 10:30 to 11 AM
Evergreen Cemetery
279 Benjamin H Hill Dr. East
Fitzgerald, GA 31750
229 426-5063