In November 1932, the Australian military deployed Major G. P. W.
Meredith and two soldiers armed with heavy Lewis automatic machine guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition to Western Australia. Their mission was to eradicate a destructive population of roughly 20,000 emus laying waste to local wheat crops. On paper, it seemed like an easy victory for modern military technology, but the operation quickly devolved into a tactical and logistical nightmare.
The Lewis gun, a light machine gun left over from World War I, proved wildly impractical against the agile birds. Weighing nearly 30 pounds, the weapon was difficult to maneuver across the hot Outback terrain. Dust and rapid firing caused the gun to overheat and jam repeatedly.
During a major ambush near a local dam, soldiers allowed a flock of over 1,000 emus to approach within point-blank range before opening fire. After a brief burst, the gun jammed, and the birds scattered into the scrub before the crew could clear the breach. Attempting to solve the issue of mobility, the team mounted a Lewis gun to the back of a Ford truck to hunt down the birds at high speeds.
This tactic failed spectacularly. The rough terrain made aiming impossible, and the relentless bouncing destroyed the vehicle frame before a single hit could be scored. Furthermore, hauling thousands of rounds of heavy .
303 ammunition across vast distances consumed excessive fuel and effort for minimal results. Major Meredith famously noted that emus could face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks, as even wounded birds easily outran the heavily laden human soldiers. After weeks of wasted ammunition and mounting embarrassment, the Australian military officially withdrew, leaving the emus in command of the field.