| Date: 1 October 1965 |
| Aircraft type: F-4C Phantom |
| Serial Number: 63-7712 |
| Military Unit: 47 TFS, 15 TFW on TDY |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Ubon |
| Name(s): |
| Capt Charles Joseph Scharf (KIA) |
| 1Lt Martin John Massucci (KIA) |
| The first US loss in October took place near Ban Chan, 65 miles west of Hanoi. A flight of four F-4s was on an armed reconnaissance mission when the leader, Capt Scharf, spotted an NVA staging area near Ban Chan, just 25 miles north of the Laotian border. As he dived to attack the target from about 2,500 feet, Capt Scharf’s aircraft (call sign Gator 3) was hit by small arms fire and immediately burst into flames. One parachute was seen to deploy before the aircraft crashed but neither men appeared in the North Vietnamese prison camp system and were probably killed in the incident. The parachute seen was later thought to have been the aircraft’s drag chute. The men were officially declared dead in January 1978. In 1990 information was received from the Vietnamese government that the crew of the Phantom had been buried near the crash site but that one of the graves had been washed away in a flood. Several excavations took place between 1990 and 2004 in which a small amount of human remains were found. The JPAC eventually confirmed that the remains were those of Capt Scharf. This was done by extracting his mitochondrial DNA from the gummed adhesive of envelopes in which he has had sent letters home to his wife. His wallet, ID card and dog tags were also recovered. Capt Scharf’s remains were buried in Arlington National Cemetery on 30 November 2006. |
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