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Defense POW/MIA Accounting AgencyFulfilling Our Nation's Promise

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## News Release

# Air Force Pilot MIA From Vietnam War Is Identified (Scharf)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of a U.S. Air Force officer missing in action from the Vietnam War have beenidentified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Col. Charles J. Scharf of San Diego. His funeral is scheduled for Nov. 30 atArlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C.

Col. Scharf and a fellow crew member took off in their F-4C Phantom IIs from UbonRoyal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand on October 1, 1965. Their mission was to attack anenemy concentration and a major highway in North Vietnam. After the lead aircraft developedproblems en route, Scharf assumed the lead of the two other F-4s in the flight. After hecompleted two bombing runs, Scharf’s aircraft was hit by enemy fire. His radio transmission of“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday” was heard by the other two aircraft. One radioed “Gator 3 (Scharf’scall sign), you’re on fire, you’d better get out! Bail out, Gator 3!” Scharf’s plane began todisintegrate and a parachute was seen leaving the aircraft.

The other two aircraft lost sight of the parachute, and circled the area for about 10 minuteswhere Scharf’s aircraft had crashed and burned but no radio or visual contact was made then norin subsequent aerial search and rescue operations.

In January 1990, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) provided information to U.S.officials indicating two men were buried near their crash site, but that one had been washed awayduring flooding. Within a month, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team, led by the Joint POW/MIAAccounting Command (JPAC), interviewed three witnesses to the crash and located scatteredwreckage at the site. The 1992 excavation of that site yielded human remains, a dental prosthesis,numerous personal effects including the rank insignia of Scharf’s fellow crewman. A secondjoint excavation in 1993 recovered additional artifacts, but no remains.

A third excavation in 2004 recovered additional evidence including pilot-related lifesupportartifacts, a metal captain’s insignia (Scharf’s rank at the time) and a plastic denture tooth.

Among dental records and other forensic tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists fromJPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) also attempted to usemitochondrial DNA from a known maternal relative to establish the identification. However, thetests were inconclusive. From Scharf’s widow, they obtained a number of envelopes containingletters he had sent to her during the war. AFDIL specialists were able to extract mitochondrialDNA from the gummed adhesive on those envelopes, and JPAC was able to confirm theidentification. JPAC’s detailed analysis of the debris and other evidence concluded that theparachute sighted was the F-4C’s drag parachute.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missingAmericans, visit the DPMO web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

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