Plane Crash Tragedy In Franklin Parish, La
The Franklin Sun     Winnsboro, LA    December 23, 1954
Submitted December 2008 by: Glenda Warner Boyd
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Plane Crash Tragedy In Franklin Claims Lives Of Three Servicemen
Two Air Force enlisted men were cremated and a third fatally injured in a
plane crash about 100 yards behind Start's store in Franklin Parish (about five miles out from Delhi)
Friday evening. All three --- M-Sgt. Bernard Hartley, 27, and Pfc. Wilbur Farmer, Jr. 22, both of
Delhi, and T-Sgt. Tom Bagwell of Parrish, Ala --- were stationed at Maxwell Air Force base in Alabama
and were believed to have been on their way to Delhi to see the class B state championship football
finals between Delhi and Donaldsonville.
Deputy Sheriff M. D. Rogillio, who, with Franklin parish coroner Dr. Henry Jones, arrived at the scene
of the crash less than an hour after it occurred, quoted an eye-witness as saying that he had seen
flames coming from the plane while it was yet in air. When it attempted to land in a pasture behind
Stout's store, the plane -- a single-engine craft belonging to a flying club at Maxwell Air Force base
 -- hit the top of an Oak tree, shearing part of the plane's hood and its propeller off.
 Disintergrating
and burning when it hit the ground, the plane was a total loss. Pfc. Farmer and T.Sgt. Bagwell, killed
instantly, were trapped inside the plane, but M-Sgt. Hartley, who was believed to have been the pilot,
was thrown clear. He was rushed to a Delhi clinic, but died less than three hours after the crash,
although his only injuries were a gash across the forehead and multiple bruisies.
The Alabama servicemen remained unidentified until Saturday when the civil Aeronatics administration
officials and Air Force authorities conducting an investigation of the tragedy found an identification
bracelet belonging to him. It was also reported that an unnamed colonel in the Air Force Dental corps
had flown from Ohio and made positive identification of the body.
A search of the wreckage immediately following the crash had yielded young Farmer's "dog tags' and a
letter addressed to him.
State police said that the position of the bodies and the fatally injured Hartley indicated that
M-Sgt. Hartley and Pfc. Farmer were in the front of the plane, and the third victim in the rear.
M-Sgt. Hartley, apparently thrown clear by the impact escaped being burned in the wreckage.
M-Sgt. Hartley is survived by a wife and a nine-month-old daughter.
Pfc. Farmer was the son of W. H. Farmer, Sr., mayor of Delhi.
T-Sgt. Bagwell, whose body ws shipped to Parrish, Ala. leaves his mother.
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