By mid-July, the Half Flight was received two Caudron G.3s, the engines of which, like the Farmans, were prone to overheating. Burn flew as observer on one of these in support of operations to secure the town of Nasiriyah. On 30 July, with the town in Allied hands, he and his pilot, George Merz, an Australian, returned to Basra. On the way, their Caudron suffered an engine failure and they had to put down in a marshland. While facilitating a repair, they were attacked by a party of 15 Arabs. Armed with revolvers, Burn and Merz attempted a fighting retreat back to a distant refueling station but were killed. Although a search party located their Caudron, the bodies of its aircrew were not recovered. Arab witnesses were able to provide details of the fates of Burn and Merz, who were the first military aviators from their respective countries to be killed in action.
