A Jewish American fighter pilot shot down over China in World War II finally received a proper burial in South Carolina recently, after his remains were identified more than eighty years later, according to the US Department of War.

Lt. Morton Sher, a member of the Flying Tigers group that fought off Japan’s efforts to invade China during the war, was killed in action in 1943 during a combat mission over Hunan, China. As he was buried on his birthday, December 14, in Greenville, South Carolina, where a headstone with his name and a Star of David has waited for decades, family and friends poured dirt from Israel onto his grave.

Born on December 14, 1920, in Baltimore, Maryland, Sher’s family later moved to Greenville, where they became active members of Congregation Beth Israel. As a teenager, Sher was a founding member of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA) fraternity for Jewish teens, according to the Greenville funeral home.

Sher later studied at the University of Alabama, where he joined the Kappa Nu fraternity and was manager of the school’s basketball team. He was also a member of ROTC, and joined the Air Force to pursue........

© The Times of Israel