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CASE #7UUAT5 · 2 entities · 1 connections
The Great Emu War
The Australian military was deployed with machine guns against a wild bird population in 1932 — and the emus won, decisively, in a real military campaign so absurd it's still taught as a case study in overconfident planning.
The Great Emu War was a real 1932 Australian military operation in which soldiers armed with machine guns were deployed to reduce a large wild emu population damaging farmland in Western Australia. The operation was a documented, comprehensive failure, with the highly mobile emus largely evading the military's efforts, leading to the campaign's early termination and lasting cultural notoriety.
✓documented
Quick facts
- →In 1932, Western Australian farmers, struggling with large emu populations damaging wheat crops following the Great Depression's economic pressures, requested military assistance to help cull the birds.
- →The Australian military deployed soldiers armed with Lewis machine guns, under the command of Major Gwynydd Meredith, to Western Australia specifically to reduce the emu population.
- →Emus proved remarkably difficult targets due to their speed, small profile relative to their overall size, and tendency to scatter unpredictably rather than form groups the machine guns could effectively target.
- →The operation was widely regarded as a failure, with a very low number of emus killed relative to ammunition expended, prompting the campaign's early termination and significant contemporary media mockery.
Entities on file
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Great Emu War (event)
1932 Australian military operation deploying machine guns against wild emus damaging farmland; widely regarded as a documented tactical failure.
No outgoing connections on file.
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Gwynydd Meredith (person)
Australian military officer who commanded the 1932 Great Emu War operation.
→ commanded → Great Emu War✓documented