Arthur Louis AaronVC, DFM was a Royal Air Force pilot and an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He had flown 90 operational flying hours and 19 sorties, and had also been awarded posthumously the Distinguished Flying Medal.
Early life and wartime service
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, flying Short Stirlingheavy 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.
VC action
Aaron was 21 years old, 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 Flight Sergeant Aaron's aircraft was thought to have been from an enemy night fighter, but may have been friendly fire from another Stirling.
Memorials
He was an 'old boy' of Roundhay School, Leeds. There is a plaque in the main hall of the school to his memory incorporating the deed that merited the VC. Genealogical research proved many years ago that Aaron's father was a Russian Jewish immigrant even though the family denied it after Aaron was killed, and he boasted of this to members of his air training colleagues in the mess in Texas on many occasions.
He is commemorated at the AJEXJewish Military Museum in Hendon, London, one of three Jewish Victoria Cross recipients of the Second World War. Aaron also belonged at school or University to 319 ATC Squadron in Broughton, Salford, where his photograph still hangs; this fact was researched by Col Martin Newman DL from the HQ Air Cadets archives. Aaron's Victoria Cross is displayed at the Leeds City Museum. 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 Latrobe and Sir 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. There was controversy about the siting of the statue, and it was proposed to transfer it to Millennium Square outside Leeds City Museum. However, as of 2012 the statue remains on the roundabout.
