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That time Australia lost a war to birds
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Written By Shin Huynh
The year is 1932: hundreds of Australian soldiers are returning from the western front overseas. Disgruntled, hungry and most importantly, poor. To remedy this, the Australian government gave the men pitchforks and told them to farm.
Large areas of land in Western Australia were handed over to veterans in an attempt to support them after the First World War. However, farming in the region proved difficult. The Great Depression had struck, wheat prices collapsed, and many struggling farmers found themselves unable to make a stable living. Then came another problem.
An army of 20,000 strong individuals descended upon the farmlands; they pillaged and destroyed everything in their path. Farmers attempted to fight back, firing upon the hordes with whatever old rifles they still had left from the First World War. Yet it was not enough. Even after a barrage of gunfire came their way, the attackers continued onward. Desperate and outmatched, the farmers turned towards the Australian government and Defence Minister George Pearce for help; Pearce agreed to the cause.
And so, by November of 1932, full war had been declared on the attackers. But, there was one small issue:there were no human enemies standing atop those orange hills of the Australian outback. Instead, there stood thousands of emus, hungry for wheat and impossible to control.
Soldiers from the Royal Australian Artillery, led by Major G.P.W Meredith, were deployed into Western Australia armed with two Lewis machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. Their objective was straightforward: locate the emus, eliminate them, and restore order to the struggling farmlands. However, the soldiers quickly discovered that fighting thousands of large, high speed birds across the Australian outback was far more difficult than expected.
The first major engagement took place near Campion on November 2nd, 1932. Soldiers waited as large groups of emus moved within firing range. But once the guns opened fire, the birds scattered in every direction before accurate shots could be landed. Another ambush near a local dam ended similarly after both machine guns jammed, allowing hundreds of emus to escape once again. According to Major Meredith, the birds displayed “remarkable manoeuvrability”, making them difficult targets even with military weaponry. Some soldiers even claimed the emus left behind “scout birds” to warn the others of approaching danger.
Even when soldiers successfully shot an emu, many continued running. Meredith later remarked that if the military had “a division with the bullet carrying capacity of these birds, it would face any army in the world.” The campaign quickly became an embarrassment for the Australian military and especially for George Pearce, who was heavily criticised by opposition parties and newspapers alike.
Despite repeated failures, the operation continued for several weeks. Eventually, the soldiers improved their tactics; by December, hundreds of emus were reportedly being killed each week. By the end of the operation, Meredith claimed a total kill count of 960 emus The public, however, disagreed: one official later joked that medals should be handed out to the emus, who had won every major battle.
Although the military operation ended, the emus remained. Farmers would later control their numbers through bounty systems and improved fencing, finally bringing the strange conflict to an end. Nearly a century later, the Great Emu War remains one of the most bizarre military campaigns in modern history.
References:
“The Emu War” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
“Emu war - Oversimplified” Oversimplified https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXpu6tbFCsI
“The Great Emu war” Extra History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiRz52AQlMk
“The Great Emu war” Sam O’Nella academy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOPZQHTNUs0
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