Australian Army defeated by.......EMUs - This is a True Story from 1932

bkkshadow (70)in #history • 8 years ago

If you haven't heard about the "Great Emu War of 1932" you could be forgiven. I am Australia and only recently did I discover it myself. But it did happen, this is not just a great Aussie yarn. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You've got to be kidding me!

Here is a sentence that is both absurd and surprising: in 1932, Australia declared war on emus: And we lost!!!

What did the emus do to deserve this aggression from our soldiers? Following the Great Depression, Western Australian farmers had been facing hard times with their crops, and their difficulties increased markedly with the arrival of some 20,000 emus who were migrating inland for their breeding season.

The farmers relayed their concerns to the government, which called upon a deputation of ex-soldiers from the first World War, who requested the use of machine guns to fight off the emus.

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The Battle:

On 2 November the soldiers traveled to Campion, Western Australia where about 50 emus had been sighted. As the birds were out of range of the guns, the local settlers attempted to herd the emus into an ambush, but the birds split into small groups and ran so that they were difficult to target. Nevertheless, while the first fusillade from the machine guns was ineffective due to them being out of range, a second round of gunfire was able to kill a few unlucky birds. Later the same day a small flock was encountered, and reports indicate that maybe a dozen birds were killed.

The next significant event was on 4 November. Again, the soldiers had established an ambush near a local dam, and more than 1,000 emus were spotted heading towards their position. This time the gunners waited until the birds were in close proximity before opening fire. The gun apparently jammed after only twelve birds were killed, however, and the remainder scattered before more could be killed. The remaining birds were clever enough to stay out of sight for the rest of the day.

In the days that followed there was a move further south where the birds were "reported to be fairly tame", but there was only limited success in spite of these efforts.At one stage a gun was mounted onto one of the trucks in an effort to keep up with the running birds.However, this proved to be ineffective, as the truck was unable to gain on the birds, and the outback roads were so rough that the gunner was unable to fire any shots By 8 November, six days after the first engagement, 2,500 rounds of ammunition had been fired. The number of birds killed is uncertain: one account claims just 50 birds had fallen to the army's bullets,but other accounts range from 200 to 500—the latter figure being provided by the settlers.

The ensuing Emu War has been summarized thusly by ornithologist D.L. Serventy:

"The machine-gunners’ dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month."

Despite the clip, in which the human soldiers fire their Lewis guns with vigor, it was the emus that came out victorious in the Great Emu War of 1932. The birds remain plentiful in the areas outside of Perth to this day.