Charles Scharf was born on 20Mar 1933 in San Diego, California. He joined the Air Froce and fought in Vietnam where he is remembered for his heroism. On Oct 1, 1965 Capt. Charles Scharf led a reconnaissance mission with four F4C fighter jets to a road 79 miles away from Hanoi. This mission had a difficult target as the only thing they knew they were looking for was a road in the jungle. At the beginning of the mission, the F4C jets flew at a low altitude to avoid detection by a SAM site. The three fighters then flew up to 15,000 feet to look for the target, but it could not be located. As they were at the 15,000 feet mark, the fighters got separated. Once separated, one of the F4C's saw Capt Scharf's plane burning and heard a transmit from him for Mayday. The pilot of the one plane saw Scharf parachute from the plane and tried to keep him in site. As the plane grew closer to where the crash happened, enemy troops on the ground began shooting at the plane and he lost visual of the parachute. After this, Scharf was reported as MIA. During his MIA period, he was promoted to Colonel. In 1967 East German made a film called "Pilots in Pajamas." This was an eight hour propaganda filmed that showed 150 POWS in a striped pajama like uniform. The 150 POWs gave their name, birthdates, parents, martial status, religion, and date and place of capture. All the POWs on the tape were Caucasian and seemed to be healthy. Rumor has Col. Scharf was seen in the film but it could not be confirmed as him.