In 1932 the Australian Army was deployed on home soil to fight an unusual enemy... 20,000 flightless birds.
What you think would be an easy mission to cull emus that were destroying farmers crops, became a failed effort and an historic joke with the emus coming out on top.
Soldier settlers were struggling to make a life out of farming because of the Great Depression. This had brought their wheat and wool prices tumbling down. Then the emus arrived.
After World War One, soldiers were given farms to make a new life. Many found the dream hard to achieve with harsh weather and living conditions.
Beginning with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Great Depression lowered prices for wheat and wool. This put pressure on already struggling farmers.
A drought in inland Western Australia forced emus to enter farms to look for food, which destroyed fences, trampled crops and let rabbits in.
The Australian Government wanted to help settler farmers so they sent three ex-soldiers with two Lewis light machine guns to cull thousands of emus.
The Emu War began on the 2 of November 1932. As soon as they opened fire emus scattered in all directions. After 3 days of "battle" the men had only killed 30 emus which was way less than planned.
After 10 days the emus had shown they were a worthy enemy. They used lookouts, would split up and could run quite fast. This surprised the soldiers and eventually they gave up because it was taking too long and wasting too much ammunition.
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.
Leader Of The Emu Cull Team
In response to being asked in Federal Parliament if any medals would be awarded to Emu War soldiers:
The emus have won every round so far.
Federal Labor Minister for WA
The soldiers only killed a fraction of the emus they were expected to kill in what became an expensive and unnecessarily cruel operation.
Facing pressure from the public, the government ended The Emu War and looked at better options like building better fences and giving farmers ammunition to cull emus themselves.
I couldn't imagine how emus could get themselves involved in a war, that is why I chose this quirky topic. Once I discovered the war was part of the Great Depression it made me want to keep researching.
To get more information on the topic I went to libraries to borrow books, looked at old newspapers and read many websites looking for primary and secondary sources.
To present my topic I had to learn how to use a website builder and how to summarise lots of different sources into short paragraphs. I had the idea to make the web page look like an old timey newspaper and I researched what they looked like too.
On the history side, I learned how difficult it was for soldiers returning after war, how hard it is to farm in Australia, and how firepower doesn't always solve problems.
St John Bosco Catholic Primary School
Websites & Videos
The bizarre story of when Australia went to war with emus—and lost | National Geographic
Emu War | History, Summary, & Facts | Britannica
Australia's Emu War spawns feature film, jokes and memes 90 years on - ABC News
Western Australia Makes War On Emus
Inside Australia's Hapless Campaign Against Emus, The Great Emu War Of 1932
The Great Emu War: how it started and who won | ABC Australia
The Great Emu War | History Hub for Kids
Looking back: Australia's Emu Wars - Australian Geographic
The Great Emu War: How Flightless Birds Beat the Australian Army | History Hit
The Great Emu War of 1932 | Everything You Need to Know!
Newspapers
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/82880800
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/82880770
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2317086
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4509731
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TS19331227.2.79
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/16929343
Books
The Greatest Nobodies Of History: Adrian Bliss
Australia’s Most Unbelievable True Stories: Jim Haynes