The Great Emu War

(Transcript is automatically generated and may contain errors)

The Lewis gun is a light machine gun. Manufactured during World War I it's

made of steel and wood. It weighs 28 pounds, 13 kilograms and can spit out

between 500 and 600 bullets a minute. The Emu is a large flightless bird

native to Australia. It's made of mussels, sinew and feathers. With a brain

weighing just 21 grams it's one of the dumbest of all birds. They've been known

to charge at cars going down freeways. So if the two objects were pitted against

each other in say a war.. it seems obvious who would win right? 

That's right, the Emu.

Welcome back to Anthology of Heroes, the podcast that usually shares stories of

heroism and defiance throughout the ages. Anthology of Heroes is part of the

Evergreen podcast network. I'm your host Elliot Gates and today we're gonna do

something a little different. We've had some pretty dark episodes lately, haven't

we? Concentration camps, trails of tears and two brutal sackings. So I thought I'd

change things up a bit this week. Today is gonna be a bit of a silly one, so if

you're a first-time listener we're usually a bit more serious than this, I

promise. Today we're going to be talking about my people's greatest shame, the so

called Great Emu War of 1932. You heard that right, Great Emu War. Believe it or not, as

an Aussie growing up we didn't get taught much about this strange one-month conflict

with our native animals, perhaps the government forbade it, I don't know. So what a surprise

it was to me when I logged onto the internet as a curious young teenager and found my nation

at the butt end of this joke!

 Since then the mockings only increased. I've seen fake

Wikipedia battle statistics, I remember one of them had the casualties listed as

four Emus and Australian dignity, I've seen Emus photoshopped over maps of

Australia pointing at our capital, and just the other day I read that John

Cleese is apparently working on a movie about it. Erwin Rommel, one of the most

talented of all Nazi generals, has quoted as saying, if I had to take hell I would

use the Australians to take it. So what exactly went wrong here? How did veteran

soldiers lose a war to Emus? Let's find out together.

Most people know that the British colonised Australia, but what a lot of people don't

know is that the Dutch probably got there first. On the much more sparsely populated

west coast of Australia, the Dutch were the first to map the coastline. But they didn't

settle. Instead they effectively looked around and thought, thanks, but no thanks.

Before heading off to somewhere with spices. That's right, at a time when

Europeans were literally establishing colonies on sandbars in the middle of

the ocean, they decided this place really wasn't worth the effort. And it's in

this majestic state of Western Australia that our story begins. Around the year

1919, a large number of servicemen returned to Australia from World War One.

The war was over and now they had no job. What were they going to do now? At the

time, the government had this idealistic view of the Aussie battler. Hard men of few

words, humble and never afraid to roll at their sleeves and get down to work. So why

not turn the soldiers into farmers? It made sense, right? The country needed food

and the soldiers needed jobs. So under this program, about 20,000 government

assisted farms sprang up across the country. And all the nation's problems were

solved. Not really. When rubber hit the road, it became obvious that the policy

hadn't really been fleshed out. The plots of lands were small, really small,

meaning it was hard to turn a profit. The land was also not really great quality.

It had high concentrations of salt and it was prone to frosting over. And whatever

did grow, the rabbits usually just tucked into them. Compounding this, the people

managing the land were soldiers, not farmers. By the late 1920s, a majority of

farms had been abandoned or sold to neighboring farmers. 

The government didn't really know what to do. So they sent in experts, pen pushers who had

attended a lecture or two on agriculture and figured they were well placed to

educate these quaint backward country folk. They arrived, stepping out of their

black Ford automobiles into the red dust bowl of Western Australia. Sweating

through their thousand dollar suit, they'd suggest a fence here or a well

there and after a few days, they'd disappear into the sunset. The farmers

were not impressed. And things were about to get worse. The Great Depression had

just made landfall down under. Food prices plummeted across the world. Debt

rose and those already struggling farmers were now barely making ends meet. Most

tried to mitigate their losses by diversifying their ventures. Oats, sheep,

pineapple, wheat. If one failed, at least they still had the others. But once again,

the government intervened. Prime Minister James Scullin introduced the

appropriately titled Grow More Wheat Campaign. Wheat was in demand at the

time and with the unemployment almost hitting 15%, the PM set a price for the

crop at 14 shillings a bushel. The wheat would be exported overseas and

hopefully ease pressure on the Australian economy. Abandoning all their other

ventures, farmers enthusiastically embraced the scheme. Those in Western

Australia would now exclusively grow wheat. However, Prime Minister Scullin was

trying to catch a falling knife.

 Little did know that depression was just

getting started. And soon the worldwide price of wheat was around two shillings

a bushel and tumbling. If his government followed through with his promised price,

they'd go broke. So the same experts now advised the farmers to just store the

wheat and wait for the price to rise. They reassured them, hey, don't worry,

we're sure next month it'll be up to five shillings, surely. Anyone who believed

them though was in for a world of pain as the price plummeted to just over one

shilling a bushel. Scullin's government was voted out the following year and the

new government offered the farmers four and a half pence per bushel, a little

over one sixteenth of what the government originally promised. Just as it

seemed like things couldn't get any worse, the weary farmers leaned on their

shovels and gazed into the distance. The sight that beheld them was one that I

hope I never have to see. On the horizon were Emus. Tens of thousands of them.

After Emus pair up and mate, they leave for the drier plains of the Australian

desert and head for greener pastures. Unfortunately for the farmers, loggers

had cleared many of those green pastures for livestock. The birds' water supply

had also been sectioned off to create lakes, so these Emus, who would have

usually just stopped for a quick bite and a drink before moving on, instead found

this oasis of everything an Emu could ever need. They could drink the lakes

dry as they chomp down on the farmer's hard-fought crop. And wouldn't you know

The wheat was even tall enough for them to take a rest in. All for us? the

birds mused, you shouldn't have!

 But these veteran farmers hadn't survived the Somme just to have their livelihood literally eaten away by overgrown chickens. Dusting off their server's rifle they took to the fields, downing as many of the birds as they could. For hours the boom of the rifle carried

across the fields, but it was futile. Not only were there thousands of birds, they

were bizarrely resistant to bullets. One farmer reported that he put five

bullets into a bird and the thing just kept on running. Standing upon a

growing hill of spent bullet casings, the farmers admitted defeat. With thousands

of birds and five shots per kill, it was pretty clear a rifle wasn't going to

cut it. So being soldiers, they came up with a soldier's solution. How do we get

our boys out of Dunkirk? Ordinance. They needed big guns. Back in France, when a

rifle wouldn't do the job, they'd bring out the machine gun. So they petitioned

the local government for help, requesting the deployment of a military

division against these creatures. And the government, of course, rejected the

ludicrous request. No, I'm just joking. Have you seen our politicians? Of course,

we said yes! 

Arrangements were made with the perth defense force. Guns, ammunition

and a whopping total of three men were allocated to the campaign, whom the

farmers agreed to feed and house for the duration. A veteran brigadier

protested the amount of ammunition the government had allocated. It was

wastefully said that so many bullets were being put aside for a couple of birds.

But that veteran had only fought Germans, not Emus. And so, two soldiers marched

from Perth, led by Major Gwynedd Meredith. Accompanying them was a cinematographer

who was hired by the government to produce a bit of propaganda. Something to

give the public to show, hey, we care about helping our fellow man. Look, we waged

this ridiculous war against a flightless bird. Before they'd even arrived,

people were sniggering. The press had dubbed it the Great Emu War, and the

name stuck. When the soldiers arrived at the little outback town of Campion, a

heavy storm arrived with them, sending the Emus running. 

Meredith was a patient man. As the veteran's keen eyes watched his feathered foes scattered back into

the brush, perhaps he recalled the words of the ancient master, Sangsu, if it is

to your advantage, make a forward move. If not, stay where you are. Soon they

spotted another mob of Emus, and yes, that is the proper term for a group of

emus, on the other side of town. The men rushed to the site, and tearing the cover

off their Lewis guns, they unleashed a volley at the birds. But it was well

short, they were out of range. Meredith recruited a bunch of civilian drivers to

herd the Emus towards them, hoping the wild birds would behave like sheep and

just follow each other. The birds scattered in all directions. But a couple of

them did find their way into his machine gun sites. A few seconds later, the dusty

red ground was covered with hundreds of tinkling, spent bullet casings. A small

number of birds, slightly over zero, but far less than 10, lay dead. First blood

had just been drawn in the Great Emu War.

Major Meredith had shown his men the plan with sound, but now he needed a big

win to get the press office back. Great Emu War? I'll give you a Great Emu War,

he probably thought. An army colonel breathed down his neck though, adding to

the pressure. The colonel had made him promise to bring back 100 Emu skins,

which he was very much looking forward to making into hats for his cavalry

detachment. As the scorching Western Australian sunset, it's easy to imagine

Meredith and his men stripped down to their skivvies in the kitchen of a

civilian's house. An old map slung over the table and a few cold tinnies spread

as they planned their next move. For now, the birds were sheltering in the safety

of the forest, but they couldn't linger there forever. Soon they'd need water.

Perhaps his fingers slid over the old map until it came to rest on one of the

largest lakes in the region. If they blocked access to this, the birds would

need to come right through them. It was just like the Battle of Angelut, and he,

Major Meredith, was salad in. His hunch proved correct, and barely a day later,

the men worked to a jubilant sight!

 Thousands of birds charged towards them,

kicking up the red dust of the Australian outback behind them. Meredith had his

moment. Mounting the machine gun, a wicked grin perhaps spread across his

face as he aimed at the centre of the mob and clicked the trigger. But nothing

happened. He pressed the trigger again and again, and heard the gears crunch. The

ammo belt had jammed. The birds were gaining ground, and with their Lewis

gun out of action, the two other soldiers instinctively began firing their

rifles, which sent the birds into panic, scattering them in every direction,

including into the farmer's crop they were specifically trying to keep them

out of. A few minutes later, Meredith had rethreaded the ammunition. The Lewis gun

was good to go. For the rest of the day, the three men waited for their cunning

foe to regroup. Sweating it out in the 35 degrees Celsius, 95 degrees Fahrenheit,

desert sun, they sat and waited. But as the sun set, they admitted defeat and

returned home to get some sleep. By now, the press had well and truly cashed in

on the opportunity. Praise was heaped on the flightless birds, strategic planning

and martial ability. One paper wrote, quote, the Emus have proved that they are

not so stupid as they are usually considered to be. Each mob has its

leader, always an enormous black plumed bird standing fully six feet high, who

keeps watch while his fellows busy themselves with the wheat. At the first

suspicious sign, he gives a signal and dozens of heads stretch up out of the

crop. A few birds will take fright, starting a headlong stampede for the

scrub. The leader always remains until his followers had reached safety. The

camera crew that accompanied the soldiers had little to write home about.

Everyone was laughing, except Meredith, whose feathers were well and truly

ruffled. Going on rumors that Emus in the south were more tame and perhaps easier

to fool, the center of the operations was transferred south. But even here, the

birds, perhaps acting on intelligence forward to them from their northern

cousins, refused to group up. And this leads us up to my favorite and the

funniest part of the war. Flustered and hot, Meredith decided that if the birds

wouldn't come to him, he'd go to them.

Commandeering one of the farmers trucks, he

bolted his Lewis gun to the top of it and had a man stand in the pickup. If

fortunate son was written at this point in history, I'm sure it would have been

playing in his head as he rammed the pickup into first gear and sped after the

birds. But major Meredith was not driving along a paved road, who's driving

through the Australian outback. Potholes, dunes, rocks and brushes, the gunner was

barely able to hold on, let alone shoot anything. Bullets flew in all directions,

but none of them at the birds. Red from the heat and the humiliation of yet

another defeat, Meredith slammed his foot onto the clutch and kicked the machine

up as fast as it could go, a show stopping 35 kilometres, 20 miles an hour.

The gunner on top probably banged on the roof, desperately asking him to slow down,

but it was no good. A single lone bird fell into his crosshairs. He got closer

and closer, eventually running over the unfortunate creature. But even in death,

the bird would have the last laugh. Losing control, the truck veered off course,

bumping down a gully before crashing through the very same chain link fence,

which was, ironically, built to keep out emus.

By November the 8th, the war had been going for six days and it had not been

going well. They had spent 2,500 rounds of ammunition and Meredith's kill count

was 200, amounting to 10 shillings per bird. And that's assuming the body count

was inflated, which it almost certainly was. But even if we go by Meredith's

numbers, it was still an incredibly expensive exercise in pest control.

The new Prime Minister, Joseph Lyons, was finding himself at the butt end of jokes

in Parliament. One politician demanded an enquiry as to who authorised this

fast in the first place. Another smart ass put the question to the PM as to

where the medals would be handed out for the war. The sniggering turned into

booming laughter as another MP yelled back that if so, they should be awarded

to the Emus who had won every battle so far.

Hot under the collar, the PM stormed out of the Senate and got Meredith on the

blower, demanding an explanation of what the hell was happening out there.

Meredith's official report reads like Napoleon surveying the battlefield of

Waterloo after his loss. Quote,

The damage done by these birds has to be seen to be believed. He then describes

the bird's endurance. Quote,

It must be realised that an Emu full out can do 45 miles per hour.

Consequently, the target is, after the first burst, a very rapidly moving one

and is only visible for a very short time.

Moreover, the Emu is an amazingly hard bird to kill outright. Many carry

mortar wounds up to distances of half a mile before concluding with this bizarre

dream of employing the birds for use in military service. Quote,

If we had a military division with the bullet carrying capacity of these birds,

it could face any army in the world. They could face machine guns with the

invulnerability of tanks. They are like the Zulus, whom even the dumb dumb

bullets could not stop. End quote. But there was some good news. Meredith

confirmed that despite the odds they were up against, they had not lost any

men in the war so far. The Emu war had been a PR disaster. Major Meredith

and his merry men, (as the press had dubbed them), were killing the government's

credibility and its budget. In fact, the only thing they weren't

killing were Emus…But the farmers were still inundated with these creatures.

And the war was their best chance they had, despite how one sided it had been.

On November the 13th, another enormous mob was sighted.

Meredith's hands

must have shaken with excitement before he gave the word fire. Just like in

Meredith's dreams, the birds dropped one after the other after the other.

But his gunners underestimated the range and found out halfway through

they were using ammo barrels only half full. According to Meredith, that day,

25 Emus were downed. The most successful day of the war so far. Forever

remembered as Black Sunday by Emu kind worldwide to this day.

But while Meredith and his merry men celebrated their hard won victory, a

new foe surfaced. Animal rights activists. As it turned out, members of the

public weren't too keen on going to war with their native animals. And just

because the birds could take a phenomenal number of slugs before going

down, it didn't mean they weren't suffering. Meredith's son was setting,

but there was time for one last hurrah. Putting aside ancient rivalries, the

southern Emus linked up with their northern brothers and travelled much

further north into farms that, up until now, had been safe from the

feathered menace. They easily passed wire fences that usually blocked their

path because someone forgot to close the gate. So thousands of these creatures

swarmed through to feast on the choicest wheat in the lands. The birds settled

in for a smorgasbord. There was no time to lose. Meredith needed all the

arms he could get. Stopping by the local rifle club, he mobilized the locals and

set up patrols. With the new recruits, the major was pleased to report a

consistent kill rate of 100 birds per week. Once again, assuming these numbers

are even correct, that is not cheap. Soon, the Emus left the wheat fields, but

their departure had nothing to do with Meredith. The harvest season was upon

them, and with nothing to eat, the birds simply weren't elsewhere. On the 10th

of December, 1932, Major Meredith got his marching orders. 

The government was shutting shop on the Emu war. 

What was originally meant to be a nice gesture to

help out farmers had been anything but. It was a unique experiment, but not one

the government was eager to repeat, ever. For the next decade or so, farmers would

again and again call for the renewal of arms against the crafty birds, but the

government had wisely learned its lesson. The Emu was to be both respected and

feared. As part of the peace deal with the birds, the government were forced to

add the animal to our coat of arms. Alright, maybe that's a lie, but that is the

story of the gradient Emu war. 

Once again, this episode was a bit of an outlier from our usual ones, so thanks to you the listener for tuning in, whether you

listen from the gym at home, driving to work, or drifting off to sleep. If you've

enjoyed today's episode, or you have any suggestions, we'd love to hear them.

Visit our website, anthologyofheroespodcast, or oneword.com, or send an

email to anthologyofheroespodcast at gmail.com. Recently, we've added a

voicemail link to our website, so if you'd prefer recording yourself instead of

writing, head on over and let us know where you're listening from and what

your favorite episodes been so far. To stay up to date with our latest episodes,

follow us on Instagram, at anthologyofheroes and Facebook, facebook.com

slash anthologyofheroes. We regularly post information about upcoming

episodes, share supporting pictures, memes, and stuff like that. Also, if you're a

new listener, don't forget to subscribe. You can do so on Apple podcasts, Spotify,

Google podcasts, anything like that. Just search for anthology of heroes. Lastly, a

huge shout out to our amazing patrons, Claudia, Tom, Caleb, Malcolm, Alex, Seth,

Angus, Phil, Lisa, and Jim. Your support keeps the lights on here. Thanks for

listening, and we'll be back soon with something a little less silly. Take care.