But Alyn, who is a historian for the AVG Flying Tiger Association, is not sorry, as its the end to a very long story.

"He was in a grave marked ‘Unknown’ for 67 years," Alyn said. "The most important thing is to know that Maax is going to be back with his parents. It's what's so gratifying to me."

Desiring to be a 'Flying Tiger'

Hammer had gone to Toungoo, Burma, now called Myanmar, to join what became known as the Flying Tigers, a group of volunteer pilots who simultaneously helped the British and the Chinese defend Burma and China from the Japanese.

Two days after Hammer's plane crashed, he was buried in the Airmen's Cemetery in St. Luke's Anglican Church in Burma. In 1947, U.S. military officials learned that the bodies of four U.S. servicemen were possibly buried in the cemetery. Hammer's body, and those of the other three men, were exhumed and transported to India, where they were buried.

Hammer's body was later exhumed and autopsied and reclassified — coming to be known as "X-634" — and reburied. In late 1948, Hammer's remains were again exhumed and transported to Hawaii, where, in May 1949, they were buried in Oahu, Hawaii's Punchbowl Cemetery — the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.