A Jewish American fighter pilot, whose plane was shot down in the Chinese theater during World War II, was given a proper burial 82 years after his plane went down, according to the United States Department of Defense. The remains of Lt. Morton Sher were buried in Greenville, SC, on Dec. 14 on what would have been his 105th birthday.

Sher was a member of the pilot group known as the “Flying Tigers,” formed to protect China from Japanese invasion following the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was piloting  a P-40 Warhawk when he was shot down by Japanese bombers on Aug. 9, 1943. His mother Celia received Sher’s Purple Heart that same year.

Two attempts were made to locate his remains, in 2012 and 2019, but neither was successful. A breakthrough came in 2024, when a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency excavated a crash site in the province where Sher’s plane fell; DNA analysis confirmed the match.