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 Major
Bayard Hurt In Parachute Jump
Major Robert F. Bayard, chief military instructor in the
Council Bluffs high school ROTC program, has been hospitalized in a Camp
Carson, Col, hospital, according to word received here Friday.
He injured his back when landing after a parachute jump, according
to the report, and may be hospitalized for several weeks
[newspaper published on 24 June 1969]
 Paratroopers
To Engage In Cherokee Trail III
[column 2, paragraph 2]
Of the 3,500 soldiers slated to participate in Cherokee Trail III, 2,000
of them will come from the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division.
Commanded by Colonel Robert F Bayard, the Brigade's three battalions,
the 1st and 2nd Battalion, 504th Infantry and the 2nd Battalion, 508th
Parachute Infantry regiments of World War II.
 Grave
marker for Robert F. Bayard in Section 40, Site 666 of Arlington
National Cemetery
Arlington (Arlington county), Virginia[photo
courtesy of David McInturff]
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ATLANTA Ga, (AP) --- Col Robert F.
Bayard, who helped pioneer night-vision equipment used by the U.S. Army
sniper team in Vietnam, has been found shot to death outside a cafeteria
in a fashionable Atlanta neighborhood, police say.
Bayard, 56, was found shot in the left temple at close range with
either a ,32 or ,28 caliber pistol, Detective SD. W. Hensley said Friday
Hensley said Bayard, who retired from the Army after the Vietnam
War, was found with no money or wallet and his. |
pockets were turned inside out. The
detective said he had no reason to suspect any motive other than
robbery.
Bayard was found outside the cafeteria at Ansley Mall Thursday, but
police said due to lack of identification they did not know who he was
until Friday.
Bayard, who helped develop the night vision equipment used by Army
snipers, had worked with the United Nations Arab-Israeli peace-keeping
mission on the staff of the late U.N. Secretary-General Dag
Hammerdskjold. He also |
commanded the 1st Army Brigade of the 87th
Division sent to the Dominican Republic in 1965.
After retiring from the Army, Bayard worked as a private detective and
became involved with security consulting. |
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Mystery of Ex-Colonel's Death
Atlanta police were trying to piece together the recent
activities of retired Army Colonel Robert F. Bayard, 56, in an effort to
find who killed him with a single shot to the temple in an Atlanta
shopping mall.
There were reports that Bayard, who pioneered development of
night-vision weapons used in Vietnam, had been seen in the company of
dissident [ubans?] in the Atlanta area recently.
Bayard, who retired from the Army after his tour of duty in
Vietnam, once worked with the United
Nations Arab-Israeli
peace-keeping mission under the late Secretary-General Dag Hammerdskjold.
He also commanded the 1st Brigade of the 87th Airborne Division when
president Johnson sent it to the Dominican Republic in 1965.
But his activities since his 1970 retirement were cloaked in
mystery.
After returning to his home in nearby Marietta, Ga., Bayard went to
work with arms dealer Mitchell L.
Werbel.
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A national magazine said last
summer that Bayard had been observed training insurgents on the Bahamian
island of Abaco but Bayard denied the reports.
Werbell says that he believes the killing was politically
motivated.
"He was a damn fine soldier. He had no enemies," said Werbell.
Police said Bayard had worked as a private detective and had been a
security consultant since his retirement.
He left home Thursday afternoon, telling his wife he was going to
Atlanta to look for a job.
Thursday night patrons of an Ansley mall shopping center tavern
called police and said that a man had been beaten and was lying at the
rear of a tree-dotted courtyard at the mall.
Police found the body shortly before midnight. It carried no
identification and the pockets had been turned inside out.
The body was identified when officers found a coat matching
Bayard's pants crumpled on the front floor of a car parked at the mall.
They checked the registration of the car and found it was Bayard's. |
