In late 1932, Western Australia faced a peculiar crisis: roughly 20,000 emus migrated inland, ravaging wheat crops post-Great Depression. Sir George Pearce, the Minister of Defence, deployed Major G. P.
W. Meredith of the Royal Australian Artillery, armed with two Lewis automatic machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. The military assumed the birds would be easy targets, but the operation quickly devolved into a logistical nightmare.
The Lewis gun, designed for static trench warfare in World War I, proved disastrously unsuitable for mobile warfare against agile, giant birds. Weighing over 28 pounds, the guns were cumbersome to transport across rough, sun-baked terrain. Additionally, the extreme Australian heat caused the air-cooled weapons to constantly jam and overheat after firing short bursts.
Emus possessed astonishing split-second reflexes and toughness; even when struck by bullets, many continued running at speeds exceeding 30 miles per hour. Command tactics failed further when troops tried mounting a Lewis gun onto a truck. The vehicle couldn't match the bird's cross-country maneuverability over rough ground, and the violent bounce rendered accurate aiming impossible.
Major Meredith famously observed that the emus commanded invincible tactical stealth, operating in small split bands rather than dense targets. After burning through thousands of rounds with a pitifully low kill count, the military withdrew, leaving the farmers to resort to bounty systems instead.