Ostriches against guns or war with a surprise ending ...

• Ostriches against guns or war with a surprise ending ...

The fact that it sounds equally absurd and unexpectedly in 1932. Australia has announced a war emus. What ended this confrontation?

It is not April Fool's joke oldest known recording with episodes of the real Great Emu War in Western Australia, during which the soldiers were involved with machine guns, who fought with the flightless birds.

What did these birds to become parties to the fierce resistance?

For the farmers of Western Australia began the hard times, when during the Great Depression in the order of increased population of emus. During the breeding season about 20 000 emu migrated into the country, on the way eating away crops of grain, thus ruining farmers. Farmers have transferred the complaint to the government. At the request of the veteran deputies First World War was a call for the use of machine guns to kill pests.

In the war were equipped 2 artillery officer and 2 soldiers with machine guns Lewis, which is located in the 10,000 ammunition cartridges.

The fighting began in November 1932 - the last month of the Australian spring. Opening fire on groups of emus and shooting bullets from a distance, the military have only a few dozen hits. Next ambush tactic was used when the fire was opened to hundreds of meters. When the first shots emu ran helter-skelter in all directions, making a machine gun meaningless.

The next day, fighting the pack about a thousand birds were ambushed near the waterhole. And the birds escaped again, taking advantage of the fact that the gun jammed.

Major Meredith, commander of the detachment, admiring the speed (up to 50 km / h) and maneuverability emu, told the press: "If we (Aussies) took the division of birds, capable of bearing arms, they could be put against any army in the world. They oppose gun with invulnerability of tanks. They are like the Zulus ... "

In birds, in addition to interest to survive, it has also been a long-standing grievance against their opponents. Australian soldiers wore traditional wide-brimmed hat, which was adorned with a plume of emu feathers.

Photo portrait gunner in a hat with feathers.

Less than a week, a military detachment was withdrawn. According to the statement the soldiers were killed 986 birds, with spent cartridges 9860.

In general, the Great Emu War can be described as follows: gunners dream of concentrated fire on the enemy dispersed clusters. Command emu start to use guerrilla tactics, their large army broke up into innumerable small units, making the use of military vehicles and machine guns impractical. Droopy-Australians soldiers retreated from the battlefield in a month.

Despite further attempts by the Australian government to deal with the pesky birds, emu remained in the winners and still live in abundance in the vicinity of the city of Perth.