| Arthur Louis Aaron | |
| Birth Date: | 5 March 1922 |
| Birth Place: | Leeds, England |
| Death Place: | Bône, French Algeria |
| Placeofburial: | Annaba, Algeria |
| Allegiance: | United Kingdom |
| Branch: | Royal Air Force |
| Serviceyears: | 1941 - 1943 |
| Rank: | Flight Sergeant |
| Servicenumber: | 1458181 |
| Unit: | No. 218 (Gold Coast) Squadron RAF |
| Battles: | Second World War
|
Arthur Louis Aaron, (5 March 192213 August 1943) was a Royal Air Force pilot in the Second World War. He flew 90 operational flying hours and 19 sorties, and was awarded with the Distinguished Flying Medal and (posthumously) the Victoria Cross.
Aaron was a native of Leeds, Yorkshire, and was educated at Roundhay School and Leeds School of Architecture. When the Second World War started in 1939, Aaron joined the Air Training Corps squadron at Leeds University. The following year he volunteered to train as aircrew in the Royal Air Force. He trained as a pilot in the United States at No. 1 British Flying Training School at Terrell Municipal Airport in Terrell, Texas. Aaron completed his pilot training on 15 September 1941 and returned to England to train at an Operation Conversion Unit before he joined No. 218 (Gold Coast) Squadron RAF, flying Short Stirling heavy bombers from RAF Downham Market.
His first operational sortie was a mining sortie in the Bay of Biscay, but he was soon flying missions over Germany. On one sortie, his Stirling was badly damaged, but he completed his bombing run and returned to England. His actions were rewarded with a Distinguished Flying Medal.
Aaron, 21 years old, was flying Stirling serial number EF452 on his 20th sortie. Nearing the target, his bomber was struck by machine gun fire. The bomber's Canadian navigator (Cornelius A. Brennan) was killed, and other members of the crew were wounded.
The official citation for his VC reads:
The gunfire that hit Aaron's aircraft was thought to have been from an enemy night fighter, but may have been friendly fire from another Stirling.[1] Because of that the initial plan was to award him the George Cross, but prime minister Winston Churchill changed it to the Victoria Cross, because he did not want the enemy to know the RAF had shot down one of its own aircraft.[2]
He was an 'old boy' of Roundhay School, Leeds (headmaster at the time was B. A. Farrow). There is a plaque in the main hall of the school to his memory incorporating the deed that merited the VC. On 5 March 2022 (Aaron's 100th birthday) a Yorkshire Society blue plaque was unveiled at Roundhay School in memory of Aaron.
To mark the new millennium, Leeds Civic Trust organised a public vote to choose a statue to mark the occasion, and to publicise the city's past heroes and heroines. Candidates included Benjamin Henry Latrobe and Henry Moore. Arthur Aaron won the vote, with Don Revie beating Joshua Tetley and Frankie Vaughan as runner-up. Located on a roundabout on the eastern edge of the city centre, close to the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the statue of Aaron was unveiled on 24 March 2001 by Malcolm Mitchem, the last survivor of the aircraft. The five-metre bronze sculpture by Graham Ibbeson takes the form of Aaron standing next to a tree, up which are climbing three children progressively representing the passage of time between 1950 and 2000, with the last a girl releasing a dove of peace, all representing the freedom his sacrifice helped ensure.[3] There was controversy about the siting of the statue, and it was proposed to transfer it to Millennium Square outside Leeds City Museum.[4] However, the statue remains on the roundabout.
Aaron's Victoria Cross and other medals are kept at Leeds City Museum.[5]
Controversially
, he was commemorated at the AJEX Jewish Military Museum in Hendon, London,[6] as one of three known Jewish Victoria Cross recipients of the Second World War (the others being Thomas William Gould,[7] Royal Navy, and John Kenneally, Irish Guards). Aaron may have belonged at school or University to 319 ATC (Jewish) Squadron in Broughton, Salford, where his photograph still hangs, according to Col Martin Newman DL from the HQ Air Cadets archives.
Genealogical research carried out in 2018 - 2019 by David Rattee shows Arthur Louis Aaron was baptised a Roman Catholic on 15 October 1922 at St. Mary's Church, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. The baptism record is held in the archives of Ampleforth Abbey Trust. Aaron's father Benjamin gave his own religion as Church of England on his WWI army records. Aaron's parents, Benjamin Aaron and Rosalie Marie Aaron (Marney) were married on 8 February 1919 at Addingham Parish Church, near Ilkley. Benjamin Aaron was born on 29 June 1891 at 29 Dewsbury Road, Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, and baptised on 2 August 1891 at St Mary the Virgin, Hunslet Parish Church, Leeds. Birth, baptism, marriage, death, census records and other published period documentation trace the paternal surname back to William Aaron (b. 1802 Hillam, near Sherburn-in-Elmet, d. 27 September 1877) and Faith Harrison (27 August 17961 June 1866) of Sherburn, North Yorkshire. Aaron was a common surname in Yorkshire well before Jewish immigration to Leeds began.
It has been stated that Aaron's father was a Russian Jewish immigrant, even though the family denied it after Aaron was killed, giving him a Roman Catholic memorial service; it has also been claimed that he boasted of being Jewish to members of his air training colleagues in the mess in Texas on many occasions.[8] A possible cause of the confusion, of which there is no traceable documentation, is that Aaron may have been taken to be Jewish before his death due to his name, and/or passed himself as Jewish in Leeds, or in the RAF.