History

Australia sent machine guns against emus, and lost

In late 1932, the Australian military deployed soldiers with two Lewis machine guns to cull emus overrunning wheat farms in Western Australia. The birds proved hard to hit, scattered under fire, and posted lookouts to warn the flock, so after weeks the operation was quietly withdrawn having killed only a small fraction of the population. Farmers asked for military help again in 1934, 1943, and 1948, and were refused every time.

Murray Johnson, 'Feathered Foes': Soldier Settlers and Western Australia's 'Emu War' of 1932 — Journal of Australian Studies, 2006

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