Remains of Illinois Flying Tigers Pilot Coming Home-- Part 1

From the March 19, 2017, Chicago Sun-Times "Remains of World War II pilot returns for burial" AP.

The remains of Maax Curtis Hammer Jr.,. a member of World War II's Flying Tigers from downstate Illinois Cairo, are being returned.

He was a volunteer pilot with the famed Flying Tigers (before the U.S. entry into the war), helping the British and Chinese defend Burma and China from Japanese aggression.  On September 22, 1941, he apparently got into an inverted spin while flying in a rainstorm and couldn't get out of it.  A crash site investigator reported that Hammer's plane hit the ground nose first and his remains were discovered on the plane's engine, some 15 feet down into the earth.

--GreGen