THE WALL OF FACES

I was honored to wear Major Bifolchi’s POW/MIA Bracelet as a 13 year old, socially conscious girl in West Michigan. Seeing his name on the Memorial Wall was an incredibly moving experience.

I am the Curator of the POW/MIA Bracelet Display in the Vietnam Hangar of the Palm Springs Air Museum in Palm Springs, California where we now have over two thousand bracelets honoring POWs, MIAs and KIAs and would be honored to include your bracelet in our Display should you have one. If you no longer have your bracelet or wish to keep yours or are an immediate family member (spouse, fiancé, sibling, child, grandchild, cousin, niece, nephew, or close friend) I can order one for the Display in your name with funds donated by our Museum visitors.
https://palmspringsairmuseum.org/vietnam-pow-bracelet-display/
Dr. Dave Thompson
Palm Springs Air Museum
POW/MIA Bracelet Display Curator
Lt. Commander U.S. Navy 1964-1970
10-103 Lakeview Dr. Rancho Mirage, Ca 92270
760-328-0859 760-464-6843 [email protected]

Charlie was my brothers buddy in Quincy High. two standouts, Charlie went to the Air Force,my older brother Ray to the Navy, my brother wore a MIA/POW bracelet with his name till his remains were found , i think till about 2006, he still talks of him today, Charlie will NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.

On the night of January 7, 1968, a U.S. Air Force McDonnell Douglas RF-4C Phantom II (#65-0913), call sign Sage 93, from the 16th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, departed Tan Son Nhut Air Base for a night photographic mission in the Dak To area of Kontum Province, RVN. Radar and radio contact was maintained with the aircraft until it reached the Dak To area. After descending into the target area, contact was lost. A visual and electronic search of the area the next morning produced negative results and the two crewmen, CAPT Hallie W. Smith and 1LT Charles L. Bifolchi, were classed as missing. During the same time, a U.S Army maneuver battalion from 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division in a night defensive position approximately eighteen miles northeast of Dak To, reported an explosion in the overnight period. At 7:00 AM, a visual reconnaissance conducted by a U.S. Army gunship located the wreckage of the Phantom on the side of a ridge at about 7200 feet. A pararescue member from Pleiku Air Base was lowered to the crashed jet. No bodies or parachutes were sighted. A small piece of wreckage was recovered and determined to be part of an external wing similar to F/RF-4 aircraft. Search efforts continued for four days; however, enemy activity in the area combined with the steep terrain and high winds at the crash site precluded the recovery of the crewmen. Ground recovery was assigned to a U.S. Army long-range reconnaissance patrol from a Dak To Special Forces camp. They located aircraft debris but no remains were found. Both crewmen were promoted to Major during the time they were missing. Between 1993 and 2000, U.S. and Socialist Republic of Vietnam teams conducted two surveys of an area that was believed to be the crash site. One team interviewed two Vietnamese citizens who turned over human remains they claimed to have recovered at the site. Another team found wreckage consistent with the aircraft. In 2006, the remains were positively identified as Bifolchi’s; however, Smith is still carried as missing. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org, virtualwall.org, and “Operational Report - Lessons Learned 4th Infantry Division, for Quarterly Period Ending 31 January 1968” at cacti35th.com]

Information about former MIA Major Charles Lawrence Bifolchi, USAF, from the POW Network website is at this link:

https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/b/b024.htm