Emu War
The Great Emu War was a military operation in Western Australia in 1932. Soldiers armed with Lewis guns attempted to control the emu population. The operation was unsuccessful and the emus continued to ravage crops. The war was also intended to collect emu skins to make hats for light horsemen.
About Emu War in brief
The Great Emu War was a military operation in Western Australia in 1932. Soldiers armed with Lewis guns attempted to control the emu population. The operation was unsuccessful and the emus continued to ravage crops. The emu is a large flightless bird indigenous to Australia. It is estimated that 20,000 emus arrived in the area in 1932, causing problems for farmers. The war was also intended to collect emu skins to make hats for light horsemen. It has also been argued that some in the government may have viewed the operation as a way of being seen to be helping the Western Australian farmers, to stave off the secession movement that was brewing. In spite of the success of the campaign, there was only limited success in spite of his efforts, observers noted that each pack of emus seems to have its own leader. In the days that followed, the birds were reported to be fairly tame. At one stage one of the guns went so far as to mount a mount on the mount of the army, even though it was clear that the birds would not be tamed by the gunners.
This led to the media to adopt the name ‘Emu War’ when referring to the incident. The military operation was due to begin in October 1932, but was delayed by a period of rainfall that caused the birds to scatter over a wider area. When the rain ceased by 2 November 1932, the troops were deployed with orders to assist the farmers and, according to a newspaper account, to collect 100 emus skins so that their feathers could be used to make Hats for light Horsemen. On 2 November the men travelled to Campion, where some 50 emus were sighted. Later the same day a small flock was encountered, and perhaps a dozen birds were killed. The next significant event was on 4 November, and more than 1,000 birds were spotted heading towards their position. The gunners waited until the bird were in close proximity before opening fire. After only twelve were killed and the remainder scattered, no more birds could be shot before any more birds were seen.
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This page is based on the article Emu War published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 26, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
