Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2016 12:55:47 GMT 7
EARLY ON THE morning of 2 November 1932, the Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery alighted at Campion, WA, on to a hot red-dirt landscape about halfway between Perth and Kalgoorlie. There they unpacked two Lewis automatic machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition.
The unit's intention? To open hostilities with the emus of Western Australia that were moving in from central Australia in search of water and, having stumbled on the region's delicious wheat districts, had begun to ravage crops.
No sooner had the unit arrived than a flock of 50 emus was sighted. The company's commander, Major G.P.W. Meredith, immediately ordered his troops to circle the birds and chase them into range of the guns. By the day's end only a dozen birds out of the thousands the men had shot at were dead. Nevertheless, first blood had been drawn in Australia's 'Emu Wars'.
It all came about late in 1932, after a marauding emu population of at least 20,000 had been devastating farms across WA for some time. The farmers under attack (many of them ex-soldiers themselves) had eventually petitioned for military aid from the Minister of Defence George Pearce. He deployed troops swiftly, and they arrived with hopes of quick victory and a few emu feathers for their hats.
No sooner had the conflict begun, however, than it became clear that the Australian military had vastly underestimated the emu. Cunning adversaries, the emus proved almost impossible to hit with machine-gun fire, and they seemed able to shrug off even serious injury from bullets without breaking stride.
Describing the emus, Major Meredith later said:
"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."
www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/on-this-day/2016/11/on-this-day-the-emu-wars-begin/?adbsc=social_20161102_67461856&adbid=10154040923038339&adbpl=fb&adbpr=100614418338
The unit's intention? To open hostilities with the emus of Western Australia that were moving in from central Australia in search of water and, having stumbled on the region's delicious wheat districts, had begun to ravage crops.
No sooner had the unit arrived than a flock of 50 emus was sighted. The company's commander, Major G.P.W. Meredith, immediately ordered his troops to circle the birds and chase them into range of the guns. By the day's end only a dozen birds out of the thousands the men had shot at were dead. Nevertheless, first blood had been drawn in Australia's 'Emu Wars'.
It all came about late in 1932, after a marauding emu population of at least 20,000 had been devastating farms across WA for some time. The farmers under attack (many of them ex-soldiers themselves) had eventually petitioned for military aid from the Minister of Defence George Pearce. He deployed troops swiftly, and they arrived with hopes of quick victory and a few emu feathers for their hats.
No sooner had the conflict begun, however, than it became clear that the Australian military had vastly underestimated the emu. Cunning adversaries, the emus proved almost impossible to hit with machine-gun fire, and they seemed able to shrug off even serious injury from bullets without breaking stride.
Describing the emus, Major Meredith later said:
"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."
www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/on-this-day/2016/11/on-this-day-the-emu-wars-begin/?adbsc=social_20161102_67461856&adbid=10154040923038339&adbpl=fb&adbpr=100614418338
