The County of Bucks on Tuesday dedicated County-owned Bridge #264 in memory of U.S. Air Force Maj. Frank Claveloux Parker III, who died while serving in the Vietnam War.
Parker, a Quakertown resident, was the Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO) aboard a C-130E during a secret mission on Dec. 29, 1967, when his aircraft went missing.
Parker was just four months from leaving military service and returning to the area to be with his wife, daughter and son – all of whom were in attendance at Tuesday’s ceremony. He had planned to study computer science at Lehigh University.
In dedicating the bridge in Parker’s memory, Commissioner Chair Bob Harvie noted that the airman was only 27 at the time of the crash.
“We send our young people off to war, and many don’t come home,” he said. “This is our way to honor them.”
Parker and his crew’s whereabouts were unknown until 1992 when a joint U.S./Vietnamese team located the C-130’s crash site and recovered human remains. The remains were finally identified in 2000 as those of Parker and four others. Parker is buried in Union Cemetery in Quakertown.
The bridge dedicated in Parker’s honor crosses a stream along N. 9th Street in Quakertown, just steps from where some of his relatives long resided. His daughter, Deb Parker-Hill, said her uncle still lives there.
Parker’s bridge is the sixteenth County-owned bridge since 2022 to be named for a local soldier lost in the Vietnam War.
The dedications are part of the County’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge Program, which honors the 136 Bucks County residents lost in the Vietnam War. The County administers the program in partnership with Bucks County-based veterans’ advocate Ed Preston, who chairs the Pennsylvania Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (PAVVMF).
To learn more about the program and the men it is meant to honor, visit BucksCounty.gov/MemorialBridges.
