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Episode
4 min
Lissin
· Apr 27, 2026
Unbelievable Truths Weekly
Absolutely True, Absolutely Absurd: The Emu War Chronicles
Each week, we uncover a real story so unbelievable, only deadpan journalism can do it justice.
Absolutely True, Absolutely Absurd: The Emu War Chronicles
Lissin
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About this episode
Each week, we uncover a real story so unbelievable, only deadpan journalism can do it justice.
0:00
On November second, 1932, the Australian military commenced operations against a domestic enemy.
0:06
The target was a population of approximately twenty thousand flightless birds.
0:12
This was in the Campion district of Western Australia.
0:16
After World War One, the government had settled thousands of veterans on marginal farmland.
0:22
Then the Great Depression hit.
0:24
And on top of the depression, a drought.
0:27
That's what forced the issue.
0:29
The drought pushed a massive population of emus off their normal migration routes and onto these new farms.
0:36
They found irrigated land and wheat crops, and they were destroying everything.
0:42
So the farmers, many of them ex-soldiers themselves, asked the government for help.
0:48
And they specifically requested machine guns.
0:51
The Minister of Defence at the time, Sir George Pearce, approved the request.
0:56
He authorized the deployment of Major G.P.W.
0:59
Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery, two soldiers, two Lewis machine guns, and ten thousand rounds of ammunition.
1:08
A formal military operation.
1:10
For birds.
1:11
It was officially framed as a pest-culling exercise, with the military providing the equipment and expertise.
1:18
A newsreel crew even went along to document what they assumed would be a swift success.
1:24
How did the first engagement go?
1:27
It was a failure.
1:28
The soldiers tried to herd a flock of about fifty emus into an ambush.
1:33
The birds just split into small groups and ran.
1:36
The machine gunners couldn't track them effectively.
1:40
They're surprisingly fast.
1:41
And their movements are erratic.
1:44
A few days later, the soldiers set up another ambush near a dam, with over a thousand emus approaching.
1:51
The gun jammed after firing fewer than a dozen rounds.
1:55
The entire flock scattered before a single confirmed casualty.
1:59
So the army was being outmaneuvered.
2:02
Major Meredith's own field reports noted this.
2:05
He described the emus adopting guerrilla tactics.
2:08
He wrote that each pack seemed to have its own leader—a large, black-plumed bird that would keep watch while the others fed, giving a warning call at the first sign of approach.
2:21
That's a pattern seen in many asymmetric conflicts.
2:24
A large, conventional force struggles against a decentralized, mobile opponent that knows the terrain.
2:32
It's a structural parallel.
2:33
The Australian force had superior firepower, but the emus had superior mobility and no central command to decapitate.
2:42
The analogy breaks down, of course, because the emus had no strategic objective beyond eating wheat.
2:49
But tactically, they were proving impossible to pin down.
2:53
So what was the final result of the operation?
2:56
After about a month, the military withdrew.
2:59
The official report claimed 986 kills, using 9,860 rounds of ammunition.
3:04
That's a ratio of exactly ten rounds per confirmed kill.
3:08
That does not sound like an efficient use of resources.
3:12
It wasn't.
3:13
An ornithologist observing the campaign suggested the actual number of emus killed was much lower.
3:19
The press had a field day.
3:21
The "Great Emu War" was declared a decisive victory...
3:25
for the emus.
3:26
And the farmers?
3:27
Did they ever get relief?
3:29
Not from the military.
3:30
Subsequent requests for troops in later years were refused.
3:35
Instead, the government instituted a bounty system, paying civilians for emu kills.
3:40
That proved far more effective and less expensive than deploying the army.
3:46
So in the end, a decentralized market-based solution succeeded where a formal military operation had failed.
3:53
It became a permanent, if slightly embarrassing, part of Australian history.
3:58
A reminder that overwhelming force isn't always the answer.
4:03
Sometimes the opponent is just too nimble to be caught.
