2. November 1932

The Great Emu War

In 1932, as farmers in Western Australia during the Great Depression prepared their annual crops, as many as 20,000 emus began to inhabit farm territory.[1] The government responded by sending World War I veterans and machine guns to the territory to attempt to massacre the emus. On November 2nd, 1932, soldiers began the initiative. However, killing the emus was more difficult than the soldiers anticipated, as the emus would scatter in different directions at the sound of gunfire. The local media lampooned the event by calling it «The Emu War» and praised the emus' "guerrilla warfare tactics."


«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. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop»

– Major G.P.W. Meredith of the Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery

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