EMU — The Army Lost

Situation report

Two Lewis guns against twenty thousand birds

Drought in 1932 pushed something like twenty thousand emus out of the interior and into the new wheat farms of Western Australia. The farmers — many of them veterans who had been handed marginal land after the war — asked Canberra for help. Canberra sent the artillery.

Major G. P. W. Meredith of the Seventh Heavy Battery arrived in November with two Lewis machine guns and ten thousand rounds. The expectation, on paper, was that this would be straightforward. Emus are large, slow-looking, and there were a great many of them standing in open ground.

They did not behave like a target. Instead of massing, the birds broke into small scattered groups the moment firing started, each running in a different direction at speeds the gunners could not track. On the fourth of November an ambush of roughly a thousand birds fell apart when the gun jammed after a dozen kills.

Meredith mounted a gun on a truck to chase them. The ground was too rough to aim from a moving vehicle, and the emus simply outran it. Observers noted that the birds seemed to post sentries, and that wounded ones kept going. The operation was pulled out, sent back in under political pressure, and quietly ended in December.

The final accounting was 9,860 rounds for 986 confirmed birds. Ten rounds each, against an animal that cannot fly, from trained gunners with automatic weapons. The House of Representatives declined to award a campaign medal on the grounds that the medal would have to go to the emus.

If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world. Maj. G. P. W. Meredith, on the emus’ resistance to being shot

After-action log

What happened, in order

2 Nov 1932
First engagement. About fifty birds sighted, out of range. Driven toward the guns by local settlers; they scatter before the gunners can open properly.
4 Nov 1932
An ambush is set on roughly a thousand emus at a dam. The gun jams after about a dozen birds are killed. The rest disperse and are not seen again that day.
8 Nov 1932
Press coverage turns hostile. Around 2,500 rounds have been spent and the confirmed count is disputed. The operation is withdrawn.
13 Nov 1932
Sent back in after further pressure from the farmers. Results improve, but never approach the numbers required to matter.
10 Dec 1932
Meredith is recalled for good: 986 birds for 9,860 rounds. Further culls are handled with a bounty system, which works.
Afterwards
Parliament is asked about a campaign medal. The suggestion is made that it should go to the emus, who won every engagement.

Don’t take our word for it

It’s in Britannica

This is not a bit. It is a documented Australian military operation with a commanding officer, an ammunition ledger, and a parliamentary discussion about medals. Go and check.

BritannicaEmu War — Australia, casualties, history, facts WikipediaThe full account, with the ammunition figures History Hit“How flightless birds beat the Australian Army” MeatEaterConservation write-up of the 1932 cull

The point

Why it’s a coin

Because being better equipped, better funded and better organised than the other side is not the same as winning, and everyone who has ever opened a chart already knows this. The army had automatic weapons. The birds had nothing but the ability to keep going in several directions at once. The birds won.

Read this part

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