Michael Leo Aaron

Driver, Royal Army Service Corps
Service number: T/279497
Died 7 Dec 1942
Buried Willesden Jewish Cemetery, United Kingdom
Age 20

Headstone Inscription
‘DEATH IS BUT THE GATEWAY TO LIFE’


Michael was born on 27 Dec 1921 in Hampstead, London to British parents Norman and Phyllis nee Manzig and he had a younger sister Rosemary. The family lived in Finchley, North London and Norman was a wealthy well known solicitor. In 1932, tragedy struck the family when Norman’s body was found on the railway line between Bookham and Effingham stations. The inquest stated that it was accidental death and not suicide.

The family moved to Gloucester and Michael, aged 18, worked as an articled clerk to an accountant. Michael enlisted into the Royal Army Service Corps and was sent for training in Yorkshire. On 7 December 1942 he attended a demonstration on the use and mechanism of a Bren gun when he was accidentally shot in the abdomen. He was taken to Wharncliffe emergency hospital in Wadsley, Bradfield where he died a few weeks before his 21st Birthday.

Jewish Chronicle

Michael’s death certificate