A long Assocation.

RAAF Official
Members of No.75 Squadron Royal Air Force in Kuwait.

It would be a safe bet that in the skies above modern Iraq most of the young airmen and airwomen of the Royal Australian Air Force and ex-members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force serving with the Royal Air Force, have no knowledge of the significance of this region in the history of New Zealand and Australian military aviation history.

Believed to be buried somewhere in the desert near Abu Salibiq are the remains of Lieutenant George Merz, Australian Flying Corps, and Lieutenant William Burn, New Zealand Army, who were killed by local tribesmen on 30 July 1915. They were the first military aviators of the Australian Flying Corps, and the New Zealand military forces respectively, to be killed in aerial warfare.

	The Maurice-Farman M11 "Shorthorn" biplane, already obsolete by 1915.

These two aviators were members of the “Australian Half-Flight” based at Basra in Mesopotamia as Iraq was then called. The flight comprised four pilots and 41 others, and provided reconnaissance and bombing support to the British 12th Division, which was advancing up the Tigris River towards Nasiriyeh. At this time the Flight operated two Maurice-Farman M11 Shorthorn biplanes, and a longhorn version of the same machine. Bombing was initially performed by hand dropping, and the machines on a calm day did not exceed 50 mph, indeed, in moderate headwinds they often flew backwards!

On 30 July 1915, Merz and Burn were returning from a reconnaissance flight near Nasiriyeh when it is believed their engine failed and they force-landed on the desert approximately 25 miles from the refuelling station at Abu Salibiq. According to Arab eyewitnesses, on landing they were immediately attacked by a band of well-armed Arabs, and recognising they could not defend their unarmed machine, the pair retreated in the general direction of Abu Salibiq. With only revolvers for defence, the two airmen fought a running battle for about five miles before one airman was wounded and they were forced to halt.

Both were subsequently killed. During their fight across the desert they managed to kill one Arab and wound five others.

Several days later the remains of their aircraft was sighted by another machine from the Flight. However, despite an extensive ground search their bodies were never found.

Burn had been sent to England in 1912 to learn about “aeronautics”, and returned to New Zealand to become a Staff Officer on the General Staff. When the Indian Government requested assistance from the British Government in forming an aviation component for the Mesopotamia campaign, the New Zealand Government offered Burn, who was then attached to the Australian Half-Flight.

The British campaign against Turkish forces in Mesopotamia commenced in November 1914 and did not end until November 1918.