George Wheelock Burbidge was born in Winnipeg, the son of Fredrick, a lawyer, and Mary Burbidge. He and his younger brother lived with their parents, grandmother and aunt in a fashionable neighbourhood in Winnipeg. When George entered the University of Manitoba in 1934, he enlisted in the Canadian Officers Training Corps. He earned a degree in Engineering, graduating in 1939 and then pursued a Master’s degree at McGill University.
He was living in Lachine, Quebec when he enlisted into the Royal Canadian Engineers as a reinforcement officer on 25 June 1940 at No. 4 District Depot in Montreal. A month later he was at Camp Petawawa, promoted to lieutenant and serving in the 9th Field Squadron, RCE. In September he received permission to marry Miss Barbara Walker. They were married in Montreal, her home town. A year later, his brother Frederick, having graduated with a law degree from the University of Manitoba, joined the Royal Canadian Navy and served overseas during the war.
George left Petawawa by train on 11 December 1940 and disembarked in the United Kingdom on 26 December 1940. He completed his engineer officer training at the Canadian Engineer Holding Unit (CERU) and various specialty schools. During that time, he had brief attachments with HQ 1st Canadian Divisional Engineers as HQ Section Officer, essentially in charge of the care and maintenance of the HQ while on the move. Although he was technically transferred to the 4th Field Company in October, he remained at the HQ until 21 December when he received orders to report at HQ Combined Operations. The War Diary of the HQ reports "Word was received during the day that Lieut. Burbidge was to report to Combined H.Q. Combined Ops in London in the morning. Everything is very mysterious. No one knows what he is doing." George later completed Commando Training and on completion, at the rank of captain, was assigned to Combined Operations.
George was soon selected to join the effort to develop special teams of canoeists and frogmen to make small boat reconnaissances of heavily defended enemy beaches. He was then assigned to Combined Operations Pilotage Party (COPP 3), formed in December 1942. Independent COPP teams of six to ten officers and men were led by Royal Navy lieutenants trained as navigators and hydrographers. The teams included physically fit and highly trained sailors and soldiers including commando-trained Royal Engineer captains. They were precursors of modern special forces.
The mission of a COPP team was to gather information on proposed landing beaches in enemy-held territories. They were unloaded from submarines and used collapsible canoes to get to shore undetected. They mapped enemy beach defences and surveyed underwater approaches for uncharted hazards. To determine the load-bearing capacity of the beach They brought back soil samples to determine the load-bearing capacity of the beach. On the day of the invasion, they often provided navigational assistance to the invasion forces. COPP teams worked in every theatre including the Mediterranean, Normandy, the Far East and Northwest Europe in support of major river crossings into Germany.
COPP 3 left the UK for the Mediterranean on 8 January 1943. Three members were assigned to the submarine HMS Unbending, based in Malta (Lieutenant-Commander Norman Teacher, RN; Captain George Burbidge, RCE; and, Lieutenant Noel Cooper, RNVR). Their Teacher and cooper carried out the first recce launched on the night of 28 February and 1 March on Beach 28 near the village of Porto Palo. This south coast location would become one of the American landing areas for their eventual assault on Palermo on the north coast. Only Cooper returned to the submarine, and only after having missed the original rendezvous. When the high surf and strong winds prevented them from reaching the beach, Teacher attempted to swim to the shore. Cooper waited but when Teacher did not return and the sun was soon to rise, he returned to the RV hoping the submarine was still on station.
For the next two nights, Burbidge and Cooper continued the work on several beaches near Beach 28, recording the exact position of enemy strongpoints in places only 50 to 100 yards apart. They checked the beach incline and its contours, looking for points where minor craft could beach. They also checked possible ‘berths’ for major craft and Landing Ships Tanks (LSTs) where more space was needed for a safe beaching and suitable ground on the beach for the LSTs’ vehicles to deploy. These berths might also be improved for the build-up phase, by bulldozing earth ramparts to speed the off-loading of bulk stores carried by many LSTs. During the second night, Burbidge took a canoe into the beach to look for Teacher but found no sign of the officer. As mentioned in the official history of the Royal Canadian Engineers, Captain George Burbidge was the first Canadian sapper to set foot in Sicily.
COPP 3 was not alone suffering such losses. Other teams in the theatre suffered similar tragedies. The blame was placed on poor equipment, especially the initial British copies of the German-designed inflatable canoe, but more importantly on the lack of purposeful training. While all members were highly skilled as individual operators, their training was not considered adequate for their employment. As a result, a COPP school was set-up on Hayling Island in the south of England that focused specifically on COPP operations. It operated until the end of the war.
On the night of 4 – 5 March, Burbidge and Cooper set out on their third trip from the submarine. The weather was rough and both failed to return to the submarine. It is unclear whether they had been taken prisoner or drowned. Their bodies were not found. Burbidge is commemorated on panel 14 of the Cassino Memorial in Italy, and Cooper on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial. He was given a memorial plot in Cassino, Provincia di Frosinone, Lazio, Italy. In Canada, his family had a plot at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa, with the inscription: "Missing off the coast of Sicily.” He was 25 years old when he died.
At his time of death, his wife Barbara was working with the Red Cross attached to No. 14 Canadian General Hospital in London. Ironically, this unit was scheduled to land in Naples in November 1943 with the 5th Canadian Armoured Division. Their ship, the SS Santa Helena, was torpedoed and sank in the Mediterranean on the way.
References
Burbidge, George Wheelock, Personnel file
War Diaries 1 and 4 Fd Coys
Combined Ops Assault Pilotage Parties
Combined Operations Pilotage Party Combined Operations Pilotage Party