By Joe Spier
CALGARY, Alberta, Canada — On September 1, George Frederick “Buzz” Beurling, recognized as “Canada’s most famous hero of the Second World War,” was posthumously honored by the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum with the unveiling of a life-sized bronze statue of his likeness at a ceremony at Hamilton’s International Airport. Among the dignitaries paying tribute to Beurling, a Christian, was Israel’s Consul General for Toronto and Western Canada, Amir Gissin.
Beurling was born on December 6, 1921 in Verdun Quebec, the third of five children in an Evangelical Christian family. Beurling’s interest in aviation began to emerge when he was barely seven. He took to hanging around airplane fields. At twelve, he first took the controls of an aircraft and by sixteen, piloted his first solo flight. Shortly thereafter, he dropped out of high school. He was quiet and aloof and had only one passion – flying. By the time World War II began, Beurling had logged 120 hours of solo flying time.
Within days of Canada entering the war, Beurling turned up at the doorway of the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was turned down for lack of “formal education.” Beurling headed across the Atlantic where he was accepted into Britain’s Royal Air Force. He demonstrated considerable skill in training as a pilot flying the Supermarine Spitfire, the famous British single-seater fighter aircraft. Following training, Beurling began combat escorting bombers and flying fighter sweeps across the English Channel.
Not a team player, Beurling was unpopular with his superiors and fellow pilots. Wanting to leave his squadron, he requested a posting overseas and ended up in Malta. There he found his personal nirvana, a fighter pilot in daily combat playing a crucial role in the aerial defense of the island that was being attacked without respite. Beurling shot down an incredible 27 enemy planes in just 14 days over the besieged Mediterranean island. He was severely wounded in combat but recovered and returned to fly. He became known as the “Falcon of Malta.”
Beurling was a maverick, a loner, disdained teamwork, insubordinate, a disciplinary problem but he was one hell of a fighter pilot, the best that Canada had. By the end of the war, Beurling had recorded to his credit thirty-one and a third downed enemy aircraft, all by the time he was 21, the highest of any Canadian pilot, the nation’s top fighter ace. For his daring combat exploits, Beurling was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Distinguished Flying Medal & Bar.
Following the war, Beurling was unable to adjust to civilian life. He held a succession of jobs; flying freight and passengers; stunt flying; flight instructor; life insurance salesman. His 1944 marriage fell apart. Then Beurling learned that the Jews of Palestine were looking for pilots.
When the United Nations voted in 1947 to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states and it became clear that fighting would soon break out between the two factions, the Jews of Palestine needed to build an armed force, experienced combat pilots the most crucial. And so at the beginning of 1948 the Haganah, the underground Jewish paramilitary organization in the British Mandate came to Canada to establish a recruiting network for Canadian volunteers to Palestine. The recruits would become a part of Machal, an acronym for the Hebrew, Mitnadvei Chutz L’Aretz meaning “volunteers from overseas.” The work of the Haganah in Canada of necessity was done in secret.
Torontonian, Ben Dunkelman was at work in his office running the family’s huge national clothing retailer, Tip Top Tailors, when a visitor arrived. Dunkelman had entered World War II a rifleman, fought his way from Normandy through France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany and exited the war a major. The visitor was Ayala Zacks, who fought with the French Resistance during the war and was the wife of Sam Zacks, the President of the Zionist Organization of Canada. Ayala introduced Dunkelman to her companion, a Haganah representative who proposed Dunkelman become chairman of Haganah in Canada. Dunkelman accepted. Later, Dunkelman would make his way to Israel where he commanded the 7th Armored Brigade that won the war in the north.
Also involved in the recruitment of Canadian volunteers was Sydney Shulemson of Montreal, a World War II fighter pilot and Canada’s most decorated Jewish soldier. Lionel Drucker of Halifax recruited on the east coast and Arthur Goldberg of Vancouver, on the west. Both were university students who would go on to fight in Israel where they remained to found Israel’s largest tourism bus company.
As spring 1948 approached, Beurling pestered members of Montreal’s Jewish community to put him in touch with the recruiters. Shulemson who was recruiting in the Montreal area was at first reluctant to meet Beurling, skeptical of his motives. He believed Beurling to be a mercenary or adventurer. The Haganah only wanted men with an ideological commitment to the cause. Ultimately, they did meet and Beurling impressed Shulemson with his conviction that the Jews had a justifiable claim on Israel as set forth in the Scriptures which he learned as a child. Shulemson met with Beurling several more times. Beurling’s sense of commitment appeared genuine.
Shulemson also wanted Dunkelman to interview Beurling, which he did in March. Asked why he wanted to help, Beurling responded that aiding the creation of a Jewish state was in accordance with the teachings of the Bible. Dunkelman was convinced of Beurling’s sincerity and the honesty of his motives. The Holy Book brought Beurling to the side of the Jews.
Shulemson and Dunkelman agreed to accept Beurling into the Machal. He was the deadliest fighter pilot recruited by Israel. Beurling was nothing but enthusiastic. He proposed several improbable schemes. He would lead a group of pilots to Cyprus where they would steal a squadron of British Spitfires. He would volunteer to fly for the Arabs and then defect with his plane over the Jewish lines. The schemes were predictably rejected.
On May 1, Shulemson received instructions to send Beurling into action. He asked Beurling to meet him with his passport, drove Beurling to the airport and bought him a ticket for New York. Beurling had no time to pack a bag. Three days later, Beurling left New York for Rome.
Meanwhile in Europe, the Haganah had purchased twenty older Canadian built Norseman single-engine light-transport aircraft. After Beurling arrived in Italy three of the aircraft sat at Rome’s Urbe airfield waiting to be ferried to Israel.
On May 20, Beurling together with his co-pilot Leonard Cohen, an English volunteer with World War II flight combat experience, climbed into one of the Norsemen for a shakedown flight in preparation for the more demanding trip to Israel. Coming in for a practice landing, flames broke out under the fuselage and as the plane touched down fire engulfed the entire craft. The aircraft exploded and both pilots were killed. The next day newspapers reported that Beurling had crashed while smuggling planes out of Italy for Israel. There were unofficial rumors that the plane had been sabotaged. The perfunctory investigation by Italian authorities listed the probable cause as backfire due to engulfment of the carburetor.
On May 27, the State of Israel dispatched a telegram to Beurling’s father requesting permission for Beurling to be buried in Israel. Two days later, his father responded, “It seems fitting that he who dedicated his last days to fight for the cause of Israel should be laid to rest in the Holy Land of Israel.” Yet for some unknown reason, perhaps the ongoing war, nothing happened.
Beurling’s Italian funeral was grand. A multitude of mourners followed the coffin; a delegation from the Canadian embassy; officers of the Italian air force; a procession of Jews led by the Chief Rabbi of Rome who delivered the eulogy. Missing was Beurling’s family. The procession ended at Verano, a Catholic cemetery. The casket was not buried but stored in a warehouse as nobody claimed the body. There it remained for three months until finally buried in Rome’s Protestant cemetery.
Word of Beurling’s interment reached his distraught family who contacted Shulemson. They insisted he be buried in Israel as promised. Arranged by Shulemson, on the morning of November 9, 1950, two and one-half years after the fatal crash, the coffin containing the body of George Beurling arrived in Haifa. The casket draped with the blue and white Israeli flag was surrounded by an honour guard of young airmen. As the funeral procession wound its way through the streets of Haifa, Israeli air-force planes flew overhead in salute. Hundreds gathered at the Anglican service. Beurling, buried with full military honors, rests in peace in the non-Jewish section of Haifa’s military cemetery. His gravestone is identical to all other Israeli armed forces headstones of those killed in action.
Eleven Canadian volunteers (Machalniks) gave their lives in defense of the nascent State of Israel during her War of Independence. Three were not Jewish and are buried in Haifa’s Military Cemetery. They are Leonard Fitchett downed in his Beaufighter by anti-aircraft fire on October 20, 1948 while attacking Egyptian held Iraq el Suidean police fortress; Fred Stevenson killed on a night supply run to Sdom on October 24, 1948 when his C-47 exploded in the air after an engine caught fire; and George Frederick “Buzz” Beurling, DSO, DFC, DFM & Bar.
(Over 4,000 foreign volunteers fought in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. Sadly, some sixty-eight years later, the contribution of these unsung heroes who defended the fledgling State of Israel has been all but forgotten.)
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Spier is a retired lawyer with a keen interest in Jewish history. You may contact him via joe.spier@sdjewishworld.com. Comments below MUST be accompanied by the letter writer’s first and last name and his or her city and state of residence (city and country for those outside the U.S.)
Great piece, detailed and well researched.