Eighty years after he was killed in combat over China, Lt. Morton Sher, a Jewish American fighter pilot who flew with the famed Flying Tigers, was finally brought home and laid to rest last week on American soil.

Sher was buried Sunday in Greenville, South Carolina, where an empty grave and headstone had stood in his memory since World War II. At the funeral, a Star of David rested atop his wooden casket, stones were placed on the matzeiva, and family members spread dirt from Eretz Yisroel over the grave.

Born in Baltimore to David and Anna Sher, Morton later grew up in the South and was active in his local synagogue in Greenville, South Carolina.

After studying commerce at the University of Alabama, Sher enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He first flew missions protecting the Panama Canal, before being sent to China as part of the Allied air campaign against Japan. Flying a Curtiss P-40, Sher escorted bombers, protected supply routes over the dangerous Himalayan Mountains, and took part in daring strikes on Japanese targets.

In 1943, after helping bomb a power plant captured by Japan in Hong Kong, Sher was shot down near Hengyang City. Though villagers honored him and marked the crash site, his remains were believed lost forever.

That changed in 2024, when U.S. defense teams located wreckage and remains during a renewed search. DNA testing confirmed his identity earlier this year.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)