The Great Emu War; a key event in Australian history and legend...
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November 2nd 1932
Thomas Hevllar squatted in the bushes with his teammates. The Great War was over, and now the soldiers have something else to do.
Emus in the hundreds of thousands ravaged the western countryside, destroying crops and causing terror. These birds were the spawns of Satan, in their wake, nothing was left untouched by their disgustingly feathered wings and tainted beaks.
Thomas was one of the men sent to exterminate these devilish birds.
"Here they come!" Yelled a soldier
Thomas grabbed his binoculars and looked, around fifty emus were heading towards them, while stomping up a dust cloud.
"Load the guns!" yelled his commander "Fire at my signal!"
Thomas scrambled to his feet and took aim.
"Now!"
They pumped bullets at the emus, since the distance was miscalculated, they only hit the ground in-front of them before they started to run away.
Thomas decided to keep firing anyways but emus were so agile that they dodged every shot he fired.
This would only be the first of many battles to come.
It's now November 4th, the day of operation 'Emu Execution' (emxecution). Thomas was stationed with a few others at a dam where more than one thousand emus were heading.
"There they come," he muttered.
"Hold until they get close." His commander ordered.
Now they were close enough for Thomas to make out their features, which were imprinted with wicked determination.
"Fire!"
Thomas unloaded into the swarm of emus, the barrage mowed emus to the ground.
The plan was good. Too good.
Thomas's gun suddenly jammed after only a minute of firing, giving the emus a chance to escape.
His commander cursed as the emus quickly dispersed.
With a few more attempts, in total only 386 birds were dead, in addition to spending way too much on ammunition, they barely made a dent in the emu population.
November 13th marked the beginning of actual, continual progress.
Using a bounty system where emus are the most wanted, Thomas set out to reap his share of dead emu.
With a rifle in one hand and a sack to collect his bounty in the other, he crouched in the undergrowth stalking a mob* of fifteen or so emus. He fired at one of the larger ones.
Headshot.
The rest were startled and scattered quickly. Thomas chased after the nearest one and buried his knife into its neck. He moved onto the next one, taking down the hopeless bird with precision.
His crew covered the rest of the emus, bringing them down in feverish strikes.
In six months, a total of over 57 000 birds were killed. When the news had spread, it was criticized as an "extermination of the rare emu."
At the end of the day, we must remember the heroes of said war, all of whom served with pride and selflessness.
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