Emu War
The Emu War was a week-long military operation undertaken in Australia in 1932 to address public concern over the number of emus said to be running amok in the Murchison district of Western Australia. The emus were responding to a long, hot summer, which caused shortages of food and water. The "war" was conducted under the command of Major Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery, commanding a force of soldiers armed with two Lewis machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. Over the course of a week or so, only a handful of the estimated 20,000 birds were actually killed. Major Meredith famously compared the emus to Zulus, and claimed that, "if we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds, it would face any army in the world. They could face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks."
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Categories: History of Western Australia | 1932