Military history is filled with accounts of prolonged sieges, tactical brilliance, and catastrophic blunders. However, few conflicts capture the sheer absurdity of the human condition quite like the Great Emu War of 1932, a formal military operation conducted by the Royal Australian Artillery against a migratory flock of indigenous birds.
The Roots of the Conflict
Following World War I, large numbers of Australian veterans were given land by the government to farm in Western Australia. The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 forced farmers to maximize their wheat yields to survive falling prices. However, their struggles were compounded by a massive, unexpected threat.
Approximately 20,000 emus, migrating inland after their breeding season, discovered that the cleared, watered farmland of the Campion and Walgoolan districts offered a perfect habitat. The massive birds began consuming and destroying the wheat crops, tearing down fences in the process (which subsequently allowed rabbits to enter and cause further devastation).
Desperate, a delegation of ex-soldier farmers traveled to petition the Minister of Defence, Sir George Pearce. Familiar with the effectiveness of machine guns from their service in the Great War, the veterans requested military assistance. Pearce agreed, sensing a prime public relations opportunity to show the government was actively helping farmers.
The Military Operation
Military involvement was authorized under the command of Major G.P.W. Meredith of the Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery. He commanded a task force of two soldiers armed with Lewis machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.
The war formally began in November 1932, but the military immediately encountered problems. Emus are remarkably fast, capable of sprinting at speeds up to 30 mph (50 km/h). Furthermore, their thick plumage acted as surprisingly effective armor against small arms fire at a distance.
"If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world. They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks."
— Major G.P.W. Meredith (attributed)
When the soldiers opened fire, the emus did not huddle together as expected. Instead, they scattered in all directions, rendering the heavy machine guns largely ineffective. On one occasion, the military attempted an ambush by hiding a gun on the back of a truck, but the terrain was so rough that the gunner could not fire a single shot, and the truck failed to catch up to the fleeing birds.
Operational Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| October 1932 | Military intervention is approved, but delayed by heavy rainfall which scatters the emus. |
| November 2, 1932 | First engagement. Soldiers attempt to ambush 50 birds, but the birds scatter. Few casualties. |
| November 4, 1932 | Major ambush on 1,000 birds at a local dam. The Lewis gun jams after killing only a dozen birds. |
| November 8, 1932 | After massive negative press and ridicule in the Australian parliament, military forces are temporarily withdrawn. |
| Mid-November 1932 | Operations resume due to farmer pressure, but results remain inefficient. Total confirmed kills hover under 1,000. |
The Aftermath and Tactical Evaluation
By December 1932, the military was definitively withdrawn. The operation had expended 9,860 rounds of ammunition to cull fewer than 1,000 emus. In the end, the Australian Parliament concluded that the deployment of military forces against local fauna was both expensive and embarrassing.
To resolve the agricultural crisis, the government eventually instituted a highly successful bounty system, which placed the responsibility (and the financial reward) back into the hands of the local farmers and hunters. The Great Emu War stands today as a humorous yet cautionary tale about the limits of military force against the sheer adaptability of nature.