Master Sergeant Aron Mathis was born in Florida on April 15, 1911 the son of Warren M. Mathis (1883-1958) and Nancy Charity Pittman (1887-1984). The family lived in the Muscogee, Florida area where his father supported the family as a laborer in a sawmill. By 1940, his father was working as a machine operator at the Newport plant and living in Gonzalez. His children would attend Tate High School, but Aron left school in the 9th grade to seek his future elsewhere. He would marry in 1935 to Miss Daisy Routon in Prattville, Alabama but five years later, he kissed his wife and son Routon goodbye and enlisted in the USAAC on July 7, 1940. He was sent to Maxwell Field in Montgomery for training and assigned to Squadron "D" of the 379th base unit group of the 3rd Air Force.
The Third Air Force was primarily a training arm of the US Army Air Corps, specializing in the B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder medium bomber groups and the A-20 Havoc and A-36 Apache light bombers. It also trained replacement fighter pilots. By 1944, most of the training groups were ending. On June 1, 1944, Coffeyville Army Airfield was transferred to Third Air Force as pilot training was coming to an end. The field's new mission was to train photo reconnaissance pilots. When it took over the field Third Air Force organized there the Coffeyville Replacement Training Unit (Photo Reconnaissance) which was assigned to Headquarters Reconnaissance Training Wing (Provisional). Three months later the unit was redesignated the Coffeyville Combat Crew Training Station (Photo Reconnaissance), with some emphasis being placed upon the preparation of photo-reconnaissance pilots for overseas movement.
Then came the knock on the door and a heart stopping telegram was handed to his mother. However, from this point on it gets a little confusing. The article in the News Journal stated that he died of "war wounds" however there is no mention of any overseas duty or injuries sustained in the service. All that is known is that he died in service to his country on January 3, 1945 in the Coffeyville, Kansas Army hospital. His body was shipped to his wife's home state of Georgia and buried in the City Cemetery in Manchester.
Two weeks later there was another knock on the door and another telegram. Nancy's son Clarence (1916-1977) had been reported as "missing in action" in Germany on December 21, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. After attending Tate High School, he had enlisted in 1944 and had only been overseas several months. But Clarence survived the war and returned home to his family before passing away in 1977.
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