Hitchcock, Tommy (Thomas, Jr) (1900–1944)

US polo player and aviator. In World War I he volunteered to fly in the Lafayette Escadrille; shot down behind German lines in March 1918, he escaped and made his way back to his squadron, which finished the war as a unit of the US Air Service. After graduating from Harvard, he entered banking but concentrated his energies on polo. Between 1922 and 1940 he was rated as a 10-goal player (the highest ranking) 18 times, securing his reputation as the greatest US polo player, arguably the greatest in the world. In 1942 he was commissioned as lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Corps; assigned command of a fighter group, he died while testing a P-51 in England.

He was born in Aiken, South Carolina, the son of a 10-goal polo player. He became an outstanding polo player by the age of 16.