After almost 80 years, the remains of U.S. Army PFC Luther Elwood “Buck” Bagley, a Fitzgerald, Ga., native, have been identified. From July 1944 until May 2024, PFC Bagley was listed as missing in action. He was killed in Burma on July 25, 1944 while serving as a replacement rifleman for the famed Merrill’s Marauders.

In 2023, Bagley was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Military Veterans Hall of Fame as inductee No. 163.

It’s been nearly two weeks since Nathan “Woody” Bagley, 80, from Rincon, Ga., received a life-altering call from William E. Cox, past Conflict Repatriation Branch, Ft. Knox, Ky., telling him that remains of his father, Luther E. “Buck” Bagley, had been identified.

His father, who has been MIA since he was killed in action was one of about 2,500 reinforcements to the expendable, top-secret 5307th Composite Unit Provisional, better known as Merrill’s Marauders, flown into Myitkyina, Burma to fight against the superior Japanese 18th Division.

Woody was stunned after answering Cox’s 9 a.m. call on Tuesday, May 14th and learning that DNA he’d sent in years ago had enabled his father’s remains to be identified. “Somehow I managed to talk and answer Cox’s questions, but I actually went into a ‘lockdown” state and reality didn’t hit me until after the call ended,” said Woody. “I walked toward my wife, Pat, to tell her, and I couldn’t talk. Pat thought something horrible had happened since it was 10 minutes before I could speak. Both of us were crying.”

Woody and Pat immediately drove to Pembroke to gather with other family members and tell his mother, Eleanor Stark, who turns 100 in September, that “Buck” would be coming home. Tears began flowing again.

“The only thing we know at this point is that his remains have been identified,” said Woody, explaining that funeral details and additional information will be officially provided by the Army.

Woody was 11 months old and his mother was 19 when a relative went to Southeastern Shipbuilding Corp., in Savannah, where she was working as a Rosie the Riveter, to tell her Buck had been killed in action at age 22. When drafted in 1942, Buck was 20 years old, and had been working in a cotton mill after quitting high school to support his parents.

Eleanor and baby Woody were able to visit Buck only once after he joined the Army and before he shipped out of Fort Meade, Md. port of embarkation “to parts unknown.”

Eleanor said: “Even though I remarried and have three wonderful daughters, Buck was the ‘great love of my life, I am grateful that God let me live long enough to make this happen. I have been waiting with a broken heart for 80 years.”

Buck was a Private First Class, K Company, assigned to the 5307th Composite Unit Provisional, or Merrill’s Marauders, when he arrived in the China Burma India Theater in late May 1944. After northern Burma’s strategic Myitkyina Air Field had been seized May 17, 1944, with only about 200 combat capable Merrill’s Marauders remaining, Buck was among the first 5307th CUP reinforcements flown in to help hold the airfield and capture the town of Myitkyina.

When Buck was killed in action it was only one week from when the town of Myitkyina finally fell Aug. 3, 1944. One week later, the 5307th CUP dissolved, on Aug. 10, 1944. The tiny number of remaining Marauders plus the 5307th CUP replacements became the 475th Infantry. Today’s 75th Ranger Regiment is headquartered at Fort Moore, Ga, (previously Fort Benning) traces its lineage to Merrill’s Marauders. The 75th Ranger Regiment crest is the Marauder patch.

In 2020, a Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to the Merrill’s Marauder unit, honoring all the men who had served in the 5307th CUP up until it was dissolved Aug. 10, 1944, “in recognition of their bravery and outstanding service in the jungles of Burma during World War II.”

The last living Merrill’s Marauder, Russell “Huck” Hamler, died Dec. 26, 2023, at age 99 in Pennsylvania, and was interred January 19, 2024, at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies near Pittsburgh.

Luther Elwood “Buck” Bagley’s remains are expected to arrive in July, and full military funeral arrangements will be announced at that time.