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The Great Emu War · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty two, as the Great Depression pushed struggling
0:11
Speaker 1: Farbers to the brink of ruin, an estimated twenty thousand
0:16
Speaker 1: giant flightless birds descended upon Western Australia and began destroying crops,
0:21
Speaker 1: flattening fields, and breaking through fences. So desperate for help,
0:27
Speaker 1: the farmers turned to the Australian government, which responded by
0:31
Speaker 1: deploying soldiers armed with machine guns in an effort to
0:35
Speaker 1: wipe out the birds. What followed was one of the
0:38
Speaker 1: strangest military operations in modern history. It was a month
0:43
Speaker 1: long campaign that would make newspaper headlines, modern day memes,
0:48
Speaker 1: and become known around the world. This is the story
0:53
Speaker 1: called the Great Emu War.
0:56
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and.
1:00
Speaker 1: Grim, a true crime podcast.
1:03
Speaker 2: Warning following material intend audience listener discretion. This can't be real.
1:33
Speaker 1: This is real. This is very much so real true story. Yes,
1:36
Speaker 1: this is a true story. It's not a true crime
1:39
Speaker 1: typically well, I mean, I mean war. There's there's arguments
1:44
Speaker 1: for it being crime, really, let's be honest, but outside
1:47
Speaker 1: of that, it's not crime. But it is definitely real.
1:50
Speaker 2: And I'm like, what the fuck's an emu, big old.
1:54
Speaker 1: Bird, kind of like an ostrich.
1:56
Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, well this is gonna be interesting because right
1:59
Speaker 2: now I'm just like this, this did not happen.
2:02
Speaker 1: Well, this definitely did happen. And I do want to
2:05
Speaker 1: preface this by saying, this is a pre recorded episode,
2:08
Speaker 1: so there is no sly little Patreon shadowed happening. Your
2:12
Speaker 1: Patreon shadows will happen, it's just delayed till next Tuesday.
2:16
Speaker 1: But this is very much so a real case. And
2:18
Speaker 1: as with the last episode that was also pre recorded,
2:22
Speaker 1: this happened completely on accident, both yesterday or last. I
2:26
Speaker 1: was gonna say yesterday's episode, but last episode and today's
2:29
Speaker 1: episode occurred in Australia. Yeah, just a little quincida, I know, right.
2:34
Speaker 2: That's so funny. And yeah, you didn't even really clue
2:36
Speaker 2: in until when we were about to sit down to record.
2:39
Speaker 1: Well, no, I clued in when I was when I
2:41
Speaker 1: was researching. I just didn't mention it to you that
2:45
Speaker 1: that was the case. I selected the stories and I
2:48
Speaker 1: knew the Great Emu War was in Australia, but the
2:51
Speaker 1: most recent one, you know, Frederick Valentine in the last episode.
2:54
Speaker 1: I loved that story and never really clued in that
2:57
Speaker 1: it was Australia.
2:58
Speaker 2: Though, gosh, I hope we could to go there one day.
3:00
Speaker 2: That is like a bucket less and a half of
3:02
Speaker 2: a place I want to visit.
3:04
Speaker 1: So long as I have a flamethrower for spiders, I'm
3:06
Speaker 1: good to go. That's that's all I gotta say.
3:10
Speaker 2: You know what, we have some pretty doozy things here
3:13
Speaker 2: though that they would probably be like nope, oh.
3:16
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. I just a few days ago I
3:21
Speaker 1: chased off a black bear with a stick that I
3:24
Speaker 1: call my chicken stick. I've got a little like walking
3:26
Speaker 1: stick and I use it to like corrollerr chicken. Sometimes.
3:29
Speaker 1: There was a black bear that was coming up through
3:30
Speaker 1: the bush. I thought it was a deer and then
3:32
Speaker 1: it poked its head out. And I'm standing here twenty
3:34
Speaker 1: feet away from a black bear, and I just started
3:37
Speaker 1: smacking the stick against like the ground and grass. I'm like,
3:40
Speaker 1: I got here and I chased this black bear away.
3:43
Speaker 2: This is quite a sight. I probably should have filmed that.
3:45
Speaker 2: I think I just continued watering my plants as you
3:47
Speaker 2: were doing your thing. But you're like get inside, and
3:50
Speaker 2: I'm like it's fine, We're fine, everything's fine.
3:53
Speaker 1: If this thing charged, it would not have been fine.
3:55
Speaker 2: I know, I know, but I mean that stuff is
3:59
Speaker 2: just so rare. I'm sure the Australians are like the spiders.
4:02
Speaker 2: They don't really hurt you. It's fine exactly.
4:05
Speaker 1: So You're right, there's some here, there's some there. Everything
4:09
Speaker 1: in the world has got shit that's just like scary,
4:11
Speaker 1: and we just live in a scary world, especially if
4:14
Speaker 1: you're gonna go toe to toe with a motherfucking EMU. Yeah,
4:18
Speaker 1: like the Australian government tried to do.
4:20
Speaker 2: I just don't understand how these things just like appeared
4:23
Speaker 2: randomly one day. So I need to hear some more details.
4:26
Speaker 1: Well it's not so much that they appeared randomly, but
4:30
Speaker 1: we can definitely get into it if you want.
4:32
Speaker 2: I'm ready, are you.
4:33
Speaker 1: I was thinking about just talking for twenty minutes and
4:35
Speaker 1: then maybe not even doing it, just kidding. Let's tell
4:39
Speaker 1: this story. And this story begins after the First World War.
4:44
Speaker 1: Like many countries of the time, Australia faced the challenges of,
4:48
Speaker 1: you know, helping thousands of returning servicemen rebuild their lives
4:51
Speaker 1: after years of fighting overseas. In an effort to support
4:55
Speaker 1: veterans while also expanding agricultural production. Governments introduced a seri
5:00
Speaker 1: of something called soldier settlement schemes. Former soldiers were offered
5:05
Speaker 1: parcels of farmland and encouraged to establish farms on their own.
5:09
Speaker 1: The idea was simple, veterans would become landowners, support themselves
5:13
Speaker 1: through agriculture, and help strengthen the nation's economy. In Western Australia,
5:19
Speaker 1: approximately five thousand former servicemen accepted the offer and settled
5:24
Speaker 1: throughout the state Wheatbelts region. There was communities such as
5:29
Speaker 1: Campion and Wagoland and Chandler becoming home to men who
5:33
Speaker 1: hoped farming would provide the stability and opportunity that the
5:36
Speaker 1: war had interrupted now. Unfortunately, the reality proved far more
5:41
Speaker 1: difficult than the promise actually actually held. Really, because many
5:46
Speaker 1: of the farms were established on marginal land at best
5:49
Speaker 1: that could be rather difficult to work successfully. Rainfall was
5:54
Speaker 1: also unpredictable, profits were slim, and many settlers had little
5:58
Speaker 1: farming experience before taking up their new lives, so the
6:01
Speaker 1: learning curve all alone was even a lot, and through
6:04
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, increasing numbers of veterans struggled to keep
6:08
Speaker 1: their operations financially viable. By nineteen twenty nine, only about
6:13
Speaker 1: three thousand, five hundred of the original five thousand soldier
6:16
Speaker 1: settlers remained on their farm, and then conditions became even worse.
6:22
Speaker 1: In October of nineteen twenty nine, the crash of Wall
6:26
Speaker 1: Street triggered the Great Depression, sending shockwaves through economies all
6:30
Speaker 1: around the globe. Australia was heavily dependent on agricultural exports,
6:35
Speaker 1: and falling global demand caused wheat prices to collapse. Farmers
6:41
Speaker 1: who are already struggling suddenly found themselves earning far less
6:44
Speaker 1: for their crops, while still facing the same expenses for equipment,
6:49
Speaker 1: seed fencing, and transportation. Some attempted to compensate by planting
6:55
Speaker 1: even more wheat. You know, larger crop yields means more income,
6:59
Speaker 1: but the increase production only added to an already over
7:03
Speaker 1: supplied market. Basically, too much supply, not enough demand. So
7:09
Speaker 1: they didn't exactly work out that way where they got
7:11
Speaker 1: more money.
7:13
Speaker 2: Honestly, farming is so hard. It seems like it is,
7:17
Speaker 2: and it's so we need it, but it just seems
7:20
Speaker 2: like it's kind of uh, I don't know what would
7:23
Speaker 2: be the word like what would I like.
7:25
Speaker 1: It's it's a dying industry that is not supported by governments. Yeah.
7:30
Speaker 2: I don't know, like you need it, but it's just
7:32
Speaker 2: you kind of fucked and you're in it.
7:34
Speaker 1: Farmers get shipped on. Yeah, literally and figuratively.
7:38
Speaker 2: Uh huh, Like, Okay, we're not farmers in any way,
7:41
Speaker 2: but we have like seven chickens or nine chickens. How
7:44
Speaker 2: many fucking chickens do We have nine chickens and nine, yes,
7:47
Speaker 2: And I find sometimes it hard just to keeping them alive.
7:51
Speaker 1: We're a little hobby farm. We got a little garden.
7:53
Speaker 1: We got some pumpkins and some herbs growing. We got
7:55
Speaker 1: seven chickens, a hobby farm. We are technically farmers, but
7:59
Speaker 1: we're not farmers, no, not.
8:01
Speaker 2: And I struggle with this. So I just I feel
8:04
Speaker 2: my heart kind of goes out to farmers.
8:06
Speaker 1: Not why, especially when it comes to like one of
8:09
Speaker 1: your favorite shows ever is Clarkson's line.
8:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know he well, I mean he doesn't really
8:14
Speaker 2: need the money, I guess, but almost every year he's
8:16
Speaker 2: like in the.
8:16
Speaker 1: Negatives he's losing money.
8:17
Speaker 2: YEA blows my mind.
8:18
Speaker 1: I mean he does some crazy shit. He does some
8:22
Speaker 1: dumb things for this farm. But yeah, farmers don't really
8:24
Speaker 1: make them that much money, so oh it sucks. Now.
8:29
Speaker 1: Many farmers at this time also believed that they had
8:31
Speaker 1: been let down by the government a big surprise. I
8:33
Speaker 1: think that's an ongoing theme. But assistants and subsidies that
8:36
Speaker 1: they were expecting either failed to arrive or reviewed as inadequate.
8:41
Speaker 1: So across the wheat belt, frustrations grew as families worked
8:44
Speaker 1: longer hours for smaller returns, all while trying to avoid
8:48
Speaker 1: losing land that they had spent years developing. Then in
8:52
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two, nature delivered another heavy blow, a severe
8:57
Speaker 1: drought across parts of inland Australia. A forced wildlife to
9:01
Speaker 1: move in search of food and water, and among the
9:05
Speaker 1: animals responding to the changing conditions were none other than EMUs,
9:10
Speaker 1: the large flightless birds that had roamed the continent for
9:14
Speaker 1: millions of years. Then in nineteen thirty two, nature delivered
9:19
Speaker 1: another heavy blow. A severe drought across parts of inland
9:23
Speaker 1: Australia forced wildlife to move in search of food and water,
9:27
Speaker 1: and among the animals responding to the changing conditions were EMUs,
9:31
Speaker 1: the large flightless bird that had roamed the continent for
9:35
Speaker 1: millions of years.
9:37
Speaker 2: Now.
9:37
Speaker 1: Normally their movements attracted very little attention, but this time
9:41
Speaker 1: it was different. See drawn in by wheat fields, water
9:45
Speaker 1: supplies and open farmland. An estimated twenty thousand EMUs began
9:51
Speaker 1: moving into the wheatbelt districts of Western Australia. They were
9:54
Speaker 1: migrating for farmers already fighting to survive one of the
9:58
Speaker 1: most worst economic crisis in modern history. The timing couldn't
10:02
Speaker 1: have been worse. The birds consumed grain, they trampled on crops,
10:07
Speaker 1: and even damaged fences and property that as they moved
10:11
Speaker 1: throughout all this region basically and worse still, these broken
10:15
Speaker 1: fences created openings that allowed other animals through rabbits and
10:20
Speaker 1: other pests. That these farmlands were specifically having these fence
10:24
Speaker 1: to keep these pests out. Well, now they were getting in.
10:28
Speaker 1: Many of the farmers felt as though the years of
10:31
Speaker 1: hard work had just simply been wiped away in front
10:34
Speaker 1: of their eyes, and before long some of them would
10:36
Speaker 1: begin to ask the government for a solution that seemed
10:40
Speaker 1: almost unbelievable. They wanted an army. But to understand why
10:46
Speaker 1: the whole situation escalated so quickly, it's important to understand
10:50
Speaker 1: that the EMUs were not invading foreign territory. They were
10:55
Speaker 1: simply following the same instincts that guided them across Australia
10:58
Speaker 1: for thousands of years. At this paint point, EMUs are
11:02
Speaker 1: among the largest birds in the world, standing between one
11:05
Speaker 1: point six and one point nine meters tall and weighing
11:08
Speaker 1: more than forty five kilograms. Although they cannot fly, they
11:12
Speaker 1: are remarkably well adapted to life in Australia's harsh environment.
11:16
Speaker 1: They can run at speeds approaching fifty kilometers an hour,
11:20
Speaker 1: travel vast distances in search of food and water, and
11:22
Speaker 1: survive in conditions that would challenge many other animals and
11:27
Speaker 1: Unlike species that followed mixed migration routes, EMUs tend to
11:32
Speaker 1: move wherever conditions are favorable, following rainfall, vegetation, growth, and
11:37
Speaker 1: available water, like Littlefoot and his gang on the hunt
11:40
Speaker 1: for the Great Valley. But if you know what I'm
11:42
Speaker 1: talking about, don't forget to stand up and stretch today. Anyways.
11:46
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty two, those movements brought them directly into
11:50
Speaker 1: Western Australia's wheat belt, as the wheat offered an abundance
11:54
Speaker 1: of food and there was dams and troughs with water
11:57
Speaker 1: and everything that they really needed. It was effectively a
12:01
Speaker 1: paradise for them during the drought, and as the breeding
12:05
Speaker 1: season approached, an estimated twenty thousand EMUs began arriving, the
12:09
Speaker 1: sheer scale of them quickly overwhelmed local farmers. Individual EMUs
12:14
Speaker 1: here and there had always been part of life in
12:16
Speaker 1: rural Australia, but few people had ever seen so many
12:20
Speaker 1: concentrated in one area at the same time. Now, contrary
12:24
Speaker 1: to popular belief, farmers often complained less about what the
12:27
Speaker 1: birds actually ate, and they complained more about what they
12:31
Speaker 1: destroyed while moving through the fields. Thousands of large birds
12:35
Speaker 1: crossing farmland could flatten enormous sections of wheat in a
12:39
Speaker 1: matter of hours. Crops had taken months to grow, and
12:42
Speaker 1: now they were being trampled underfoot as the birds wandered
12:45
Speaker 1: through fields in search of food. For the farmers who
12:48
Speaker 1: already struggling financially, every damaged acre represented money that they
12:52
Speaker 1: desperately needed and were now losing. And of course, the
12:56
Speaker 1: fencing system designed to keep out rabbits and other agricultural
12:59
Speaker 1: pests had been built over previous decades were now being
13:04
Speaker 1: pushed over, damaged and even being broken, and those gaps,
13:09
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, let rabbits and other animals enter the
13:12
Speaker 1: farmland through just little openings or massive sections that were damaged.
13:17
Speaker 1: So suddenly farmers were now dealing with not only these
13:19
Speaker 1: massive amount of EMUs, but other problems all at once.
13:23
Speaker 2: It honestly seems like they just can't catch a break.
13:26
Speaker 1: That's basically the situation. It was everything happening all at once.
13:29
Speaker 1: It was the entire like basically economy farming system, all
13:33
Speaker 1: of it just collapsing, and they were fucked m Now,
13:38
Speaker 1: some farmers attempted to deal with the problem themselves, as
13:41
Speaker 1: individual birds were shot when opportunities presented themselves, and efforts
13:45
Speaker 1: were made to drive flocks away from valuable farmland. However,
13:49
Speaker 1: the scale of the migration made those made those measures
13:53
Speaker 1: largely ineffective. Basically, a few farmers with rifles couldn't do
13:57
Speaker 1: much against tens of thousands of birds spread across a
14:00
Speaker 1: vast agricultural region. Sure you might shoot one or two,
14:03
Speaker 1: or even three or four, but in the grand scheme
14:05
Speaker 1: of things, it doesn't do anything. And as frustration mounted,
14:09
Speaker 1: local representatives even began discussing the possibility of seeking government
14:14
Speaker 1: assistance for this crisis, because that's what it was. It
14:18
Speaker 1: was a crisis. As I mentioned, many of the men
14:21
Speaker 1: involved had military experience. They knew exactly what things like
14:25
Speaker 1: machine guns were capable of and if those weapons had
14:28
Speaker 1: been a help in winning battles in Europe, surely they
14:31
Speaker 1: could deal with a population of flightless birds. Right. So
14:35
Speaker 1: groups of farmers began petitioning the government for assistance, many
14:39
Speaker 1: of which were veterans of the First World War. So
14:42
Speaker 1: to them, if thousands of birds were causing damage across
14:44
Speaker 1: the region, then perhaps military firepower could reduce the numbers
14:49
Speaker 1: before the situation became even worse now. Their concerns eventually
14:54
Speaker 1: reached Australia's Minister of Defense, Sir George Pierce, and Pierce
14:59
Speaker 1: was no strain to Western Australia's challenges, having represented the
15:03
Speaker 1: state in federal politics for decades at this point, he
15:06
Speaker 1: was well aware of the frustrations building throughout the rural communities.
15:11
Speaker 1: Now the timing was also politically sensitive. Economic hardship had
15:16
Speaker 1: fueled growing dissatisfaction with the federal government and support for
15:19
Speaker 1: Western Australia's succession movement was increasing. So across the state,
15:24
Speaker 1: many residents felt that their concerns were being overlooked by
15:28
Speaker 1: decision makers in Canaberra. So against that backdrop, assisting struggling
15:33
Speaker 1: farmers carried a huge political benefit as well as any
15:37
Speaker 1: practical ones that came with it. Basically, you know what,
15:40
Speaker 1: maybe we can secure some votes.
15:43
Speaker 2: Is essentially what's going on, okay, And.
15:45
Speaker 1: So Australia's Minister of Defense, Sir George Pearce, agreed to
15:50
Speaker 1: support a military operation against the crisis. The arrangement was unusual,
15:56
Speaker 1: but it was straightforward. The federal government would provide military personnel,
16:01
Speaker 1: weapons and ammunition. The Western Australian government would assist with transportation,
16:07
Speaker 1: while the local farmers would supply food and accommodation for
16:10
Speaker 1: the soldiers while they were operating in the regent. This
16:14
Speaker 1: effectively started a literal war on the evading EMU population,
16:21
Speaker 1: and preparations were moving quickly. Now responsibility for the operation
16:27
Speaker 1: was assigned to Major gwynd PERVS Win Aubrey Meredith of
16:31
Speaker 1: the Royal Australian Artillery. Now Meredith was a First World
16:36
Speaker 1: War veteran and experienced artillery officer. Accompanying him would be
16:41
Speaker 1: Sergeant S. McMurray and Gunner J. O'holleran, and that was
16:46
Speaker 1: the entire military force. Contrary to many story retellings, Australia
16:52
Speaker 1: did not deploy a full army to fight the EMUs.
16:55
Speaker 1: There was no battalions, there was no cavalry units, and
16:58
Speaker 1: no large scale, large military units at all. It was
17:02
Speaker 1: three soldiers, okay, three people.
17:04
Speaker 2: That first person could have been a few names or
17:06
Speaker 2: a few people, though there was a long name.
17:08
Speaker 1: It was a long single name. Yes, there's three soldiers
17:11
Speaker 1: equipped with two Lewis light machine guns and approximately ten
17:16
Speaker 1: thousand rounds of ammunition. So three three military personnel, two
17:22
Speaker 1: full auto machine guns and ten thousand rounds of ammo.
17:27
Speaker 1: It may have been small, but this was officially a
17:31
Speaker 1: war now. The Lewis gun was a respected weapon that
17:35
Speaker 1: had seen extensive service during the First World War. It
17:39
Speaker 1: was capable of sustained automatic fire, not short term, very sustained,
17:44
Speaker 1: and it was designed to engage groups of targets quickly
17:48
Speaker 1: and very efficiently. It seemed more capable of dealing with
17:52
Speaker 1: large flocks of birds on paper, you know, like gathered
17:56
Speaker 1: out in the open. Right, if you have a group
17:57
Speaker 1: of them out in the open, you think, just grab
17:59
Speaker 1: a machine gun, mull them down done that's kind of
18:02
Speaker 1: the idea, and government officials appeared very confident the operation
18:07
Speaker 1: would be a success. In fact, confidence in the operation
18:11
Speaker 1: was high enough that a cameraman from Fox Movie Tone
18:15
Speaker 1: was assigned to accompany the mission and recorded the campaign
18:18
Speaker 1: for newsreels. The expectation was that the military would quickly
18:22
Speaker 1: solve the problem, providing reassurance footage for audiences across Australia
18:27
Speaker 1: while demonstrating that the government was taking farmers concerns seriously.
18:32
Speaker 1: The operation was originally expected to begin in October of
18:35
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two. Nature, however, intervened intervened once again. Heavy
18:41
Speaker 1: rainfall delayed the deployment and scattered many of the EMUs
18:44
Speaker 1: across the wider area, making them more difficult to locate
18:47
Speaker 1: in large numbers, which is ironic since it all started
18:50
Speaker 1: with a drought, but anyways, rather than beginning immediately, the
18:54
Speaker 1: soldiers were forced to wait while conditions improved, So for
18:58
Speaker 1: several weeks the machine remained silent in wait. Then, as
19:02
Speaker 1: November arrived and the weather cleared, Major Meredith and his
19:06
Speaker 1: small detachment finally received the orders to move in. On
19:10
Speaker 1: November two, nineteen thirty two. Major Meredith and his military
19:16
Speaker 1: men arrived near Campion and began what would become one
19:20
Speaker 1: of the strangest military operations in all of Australian's history.
19:24
Speaker 1: The first engagement right out of the gate quickly demonstrated
19:28
Speaker 1: that the situation was going to be not nearly as
19:32
Speaker 1: straightforward as they had hoped. Shortly after arriving, the soldiers
19:37
Speaker 1: received reports of groups of roughly fifty EMUs in the area.
19:42
Speaker 1: Local farmers attempted to assist by hurting birds towards the
19:45
Speaker 1: military position so the machine guns could engage them at
19:48
Speaker 1: a closer range instead of remaining grouped together. Though the
19:53
Speaker 1: EMUs immediately scattered once they sensed danger, and instead of
19:57
Speaker 1: one big target, they became dozens of individual ones sprinting
20:01
Speaker 1: across open country. The soldiers open fired and succeeded in
20:06
Speaker 1: killing several EMUs, but the results were rather disappointing compared
20:11
Speaker 1: to what they had expected. This encounter revealed a fundamental
20:15
Speaker 1: problem with the operation. Machine guns are most effective against
20:20
Speaker 1: concentrated targets, and unfortunately for them, the emu's natural instinct
20:25
Speaker 1: was to break apart and scatter in multiple directions. Now,
20:29
Speaker 1: despite the underwhelming start, Meredith remained confident that larger flocks
20:35
Speaker 1: would provide better opportunities, and those hopes appeared justified on
20:39
Speaker 1: November fourth, when reports indicated that a substantial number of
20:43
Speaker 1: EMUs were approaching a local dam. The water source naturally
20:48
Speaker 1: attracted wildlife, and the location offered an ideal setting for
20:52
Speaker 1: an ambush. So this time, rather than attempting to drive
20:56
Speaker 1: the birds towards the guns, the soldiers concealed themselves and waited.
21:02
Speaker 1: Over time, hundreds upon hundreds of EMUs began gathering near
21:06
Speaker 1: the water. Now contemporary accounts estimate that nearly one thousand
21:10
Speaker 1: birds were eventually within range of these machine guns, presenting
21:15
Speaker 1: exactly the type of target the military had hoped to
21:17
Speaker 1: encounter from the very beginning. The soldiers bided their time,
21:23
Speaker 1: waited until the flock had moved close enough to ensure
21:25
Speaker 1: maximum effectiveness before they open fired. It seemed as though
21:31
Speaker 1: the operation was finally about to achieve the decisive success
21:35
Speaker 1: everyone was anticipating, but when they began shooting, several birds
21:40
Speaker 1: were hit immediately. However, perhaps the worst possible moment this occurred,
21:47
Speaker 1: the Lewis guns jammed instead of sustained automatic fire, cutting
21:53
Speaker 1: through the flock mowing them down. The soldiers found themselves
21:55
Speaker 1: struggling with a malfunctioning weapon while hundreds of startled birds
22:00
Speaker 1: scattered across the landscape, and by the time the problem
22:04
Speaker 1: had been addressed, the opportunity was gone. By most accounts,
22:09
Speaker 1: only around a dozen EMUs were killed before the flock
22:12
Speaker 1: of almost a thousand escaped.
22:15
Speaker 2: Ah. I shouldn't chuckle, but I kind of love that,
22:18
Speaker 2: I know, right, fucking run like, get out of there exactly.
22:22
Speaker 1: Like it's I understand there's definitely casualties with these birds here,
22:26
Speaker 1: but it's a win for them.
22:28
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. I know, Like we're big animal lovers, so
22:30
Speaker 2: it's just it's kind of almost sad. I get like
22:33
Speaker 2: causing some issues and stuff, but.
22:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's definitely conservation and farming. There's a lot
22:39
Speaker 1: of different angles with this. But don't get me wrong,
22:41
Speaker 1: I'm definitely rooting for the birds.
22:43
Speaker 2: Ye.
22:44
Speaker 1: Now, this failed ambush would become a highlighted moment in
22:48
Speaker 1: this whole campaign, as it seemed to be a bit
22:50
Speaker 1: of a foresight into what was to come now. Stories
22:55
Speaker 1: of this setback quickly began spreading beyond the area, attracting
22:58
Speaker 1: attention from journalists who were already finding the situation increasingly
23:03
Speaker 1: difficult to take seriously, but determined to improve the operation's effectiveness,
23:09
Speaker 1: Meredith soon experimented with a more aggressive approach. One of
23:15
Speaker 1: the Lewis machine guns was mounted onto a truck in
23:19
Speaker 1: hopes that mobility would allow the soldiers to pursue the
23:23
Speaker 1: birds directly, rather than waiting for them to wander into range.
23:28
Speaker 1: The idea seemed simple and sensible, but in practice it
23:32
Speaker 1: was an absolute disaster. While in the truck and trying
23:35
Speaker 1: to chase these birds down, the rough terrain made accuracy
23:39
Speaker 1: nearly impossible, and to top it all off, the EMUs
23:42
Speaker 1: actually proved quite capable of out running the vehicle across
23:46
Speaker 1: this open ground. This was intended to be an innovative solution,
23:51
Speaker 1: but ultimately it instead reinforced how poorly suited the military's
23:56
Speaker 1: tactics were to task at taking down Damn.
24:02
Speaker 2: These are like smart birds.
24:03
Speaker 1: Though, hey, they're not dumb yet.
24:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like they're kind of learning, and you
24:09
Speaker 2: know that just their natural instinct of kind of fleeing
24:12
Speaker 2: in separate areas is pretty smart exactly now.
24:16
Speaker 1: As the first week of the operation continued, ammunition was
24:19
Speaker 1: actually beginning to be expended at a far greater rate
24:22
Speaker 1: than the EMUs were actually being eliminated. The soldiers had
24:25
Speaker 1: arrived expecting to confront a relatively simple pest control problem,
24:30
Speaker 1: but instead they found themselves pursuing highly mobile animals across
24:34
Speaker 1: vast stretches of countryside, often with little to show for
24:37
Speaker 1: their efforts. Meanwhile, farmers continued reporting crop damage, The EMUs
24:42
Speaker 1: remained widespread throughout the region, and comical newspaper coverage of
24:47
Speaker 1: the campaign was becoming increasingly difficult for the government officials
24:50
Speaker 1: to wipe off their shoulder and ignore.
24:54
Speaker 2: Now.
24:54
Speaker 1: By the time the second week of November, it was
24:56
Speaker 1: becoming much more obvious that the Australian Government couldn't present
25:01
Speaker 1: the operation as a success. The campaign had been underway
25:05
Speaker 1: for less than a week, yet newspaper coverage all across
25:08
Speaker 1: Australia was focusing less on the damage now being caused
25:12
Speaker 1: by the EMUs and more on the military's inability to
25:16
Speaker 1: stop them. Oh no, yeah, So this approved operation was
25:22
Speaker 1: supposed to be a practical response to the concerns of
25:25
Speaker 1: struggling farmers, but it was rapidly turning into a national
25:30
Speaker 1: laughing stock. Stories of failed ambush's, jammed machine guns and
25:34
Speaker 1: birds repeatedly outrunning and escaping military operations proved irresistible to journalists,
25:41
Speaker 1: and before long the campaign was attracting attention far beyond
25:44
Speaker 1: just Western Australia, and the criticism eventually even reached Parliament itself.
25:51
Speaker 1: On November eighth, members of the Australian House of Representatives
25:55
Speaker 1: discussed the operation, with some openly mocking the campaign. One
26:00
Speaker 1: remark that would survive long after the war itself involved
26:04
Speaker 1: the suggestion that if medals were to be awarded for
26:06
Speaker 1: the conflict, they should perhaps be given to the EMUs
26:10
Speaker 1: rather than the soldiers.
26:11
Speaker 2: Oh no, yea, this is I imagining they're probably feeling embarrassed.
26:18
Speaker 2: Oh probably, Oh, because they went into this thinking this
26:21
Speaker 2: was just going to be like a walk in the park,
26:25
Speaker 2: and it is not.
26:27
Speaker 1: It's a walk in the countryside for the EMUs. But
26:29
Speaker 1: that's about it.
26:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, proving to be very difficult.
26:33
Speaker 1: And speak of embarrassment. The very same day, when the
26:37
Speaker 1: House of Representatives is discussing this, the government withdrew the
26:42
Speaker 1: military force. Now officially, the operation had not been abandoned
26:49
Speaker 1: because of defeat officially, but nevertheless the timing it made
26:53
Speaker 1: the decision difficult. To separate the growing criticism, and after
26:57
Speaker 1: six days of fighting, approximately two thousand and five hundred
27:00
Speaker 1: rounds of ammunition had been fired. Yet estimates of the
27:03
Speaker 1: number of birds killed I mean it varied dramatically. Some
27:06
Speaker 1: reports suggested only around fifty confirmed kills, while others placed
27:11
Speaker 1: the figure somewhere between two hundred and five hundred. But
27:14
Speaker 1: regardless of which estimate was the closer one to the truth,
27:18
Speaker 1: nobody could reasonably argue that the military had achieved any
27:23
Speaker 1: real good results for the farmers living throughout the wheat belt. However,
27:28
Speaker 1: the withdrawal solved absolutely nothing. The EMUs had not disappeared.
27:33
Speaker 1: They were still moving through the farmland, damaging crops, flattening wheat,
27:36
Speaker 1: breaking fences, and the same financial pressures that existed before
27:40
Speaker 1: the military arrived while they were still there. If anything,
27:44
Speaker 1: the farmers were now even more frustrated. Many believed the
27:47
Speaker 1: operation had been ended before it had even been given
27:50
Speaker 1: a chance to have a genuine opportunity of success, and
27:54
Speaker 1: as pressures mounted from local communities, political leaders in Western Australia,
27:59
Speaker 1: while they began add dcating for campaigns to actually continue
28:03
Speaker 1: the operation, and among those supporting the renewed action, was
28:07
Speaker 1: Western Australia's Premier, sorry Sir James Mitchell, who argued that
28:12
Speaker 1: farmers still required help, so facing the now growing demands
28:18
Speaker 1: for action, the government reversed course, and only a few
28:22
Speaker 1: days after the withdrawal, Major Meredith and his men were
28:26
Speaker 1: ordered back into the field. The second phase of the
28:29
Speaker 1: campaign began around November twelfth and would continue for nearly
28:34
Speaker 1: a month. But unlike the opening week of operations, which
28:38
Speaker 1: had focused on large ambushes and dramatic attempts to eliminate
28:41
Speaker 1: huge flocks, the second deployment was much more methodical. By
28:47
Speaker 1: this point, the soldiers had learned several hard lessons. They
28:51
Speaker 1: understood that large groups rarely remained together once threatened, that
28:56
Speaker 1: pursuing birds by vehicle was largely ineffective, and that success
29:00
Speaker 1: would likely come through persistent, small skill engagements rather than
29:04
Speaker 1: a single decisive encounter. With this knowledge, the results improved,
29:09
Speaker 1: although not dramatically enough to change the overall outcome, and
29:13
Speaker 1: throughout the remainder of November and into early December, the
29:17
Speaker 1: soldiers traveled throughout affected districts, responding to reports from farmers
29:21
Speaker 1: and targeting groups of EMUs wherever they could be found.
29:24
Speaker 1: Now contemporary reports suggests that they were now killing roughly
29:27
Speaker 1: one hundred birds per week, which is certainly a significant
29:32
Speaker 1: improvement over the chaotic opening days of the campaign, but
29:36
Speaker 1: even at that rate, the military was making a modest
29:41
Speaker 1: impact at best on the population that had originally been
29:44
Speaker 1: estimated at around twenty thousand. Now. Major Meredith later reported
29:48
Speaker 1: that nine hundred and eighty six EMUs had been confirmed
29:52
Speaker 1: killed during the second phase of the operation, and he
29:55
Speaker 1: further suggested that approximately two thousand, five hundred additional birds
30:00
Speaker 1: may have died later from wounds received during military engagements.
30:05
Speaker 2: Oh. I don't love that.
30:07
Speaker 1: I don't love that either. That is probably the worst
30:09
Speaker 1: part of this story. That they are not shooting to kill,
30:12
Speaker 1: but they are also injuring as well.
30:14
Speaker 2: Wow, they honestly just seem kind of incompetent. I know,
30:18
Speaker 2: feel kind of like an asshole saying that, but it
30:22
Speaker 2: they're not even paying their wage.
30:24
Speaker 1: Really not really, No, you're right, they're not. Now. Historians
30:29
Speaker 1: have debated a bit with some of those figures, and
30:31
Speaker 1: they have ever since, and it's impossible really to determine
30:34
Speaker 1: the exact number of casualties with certainty. But what is clear, though,
30:38
Speaker 1: is that the operation became much more effective after the
30:42
Speaker 1: redeployment than it was in the first week. The problem was, though,
30:46
Speaker 1: that improved effectiveness and success were far from the same thing.
30:51
Speaker 1: Even if Meredith's highest estimates were accepted, the military was
30:56
Speaker 1: still expending large quantities of ammunition while failing to fight
31:00
Speaker 1: fundamentally solve the problem at hand. EMUs continued entering agricultural districts,
31:05
Speaker 1: crop damage continued, and farmers continued requesting assistance, and the
31:10
Speaker 1: operation was gradually beginning to resemble a very expensive holding
31:15
Speaker 1: action rather than a permanent solution, kind of a big
31:18
Speaker 1: old band aid rather than a fix. As December approached,
31:23
Speaker 1: enthusiasm for continuing the campaigns steadily faded away. Government officials
31:27
Speaker 1: were increasingly reluctant to dedicate resources to something that seemed
31:32
Speaker 1: unlikely to produce lasting results, while many observers had already
31:36
Speaker 1: concluded that military force simply was not the right tool
31:40
Speaker 1: for the job, which is a nice way of saying
31:42
Speaker 1: they were incompetent. Finally, on December tenth, nineteen thirty two,
31:47
Speaker 1: the campaign came to an end. Major Meredith and his
31:51
Speaker 1: men packed up their equipment and left the wheat Belt
31:54
Speaker 1: for the final time. No victory was declared, no lasting
31:59
Speaker 1: solution had been achieved, and after more than a month
32:02
Speaker 1: of intermittent operations, the Australian military withdrew and would never
32:07
Speaker 1: again be deployed against a horde of EMUs.
32:11
Speaker 2: Oh honestly, the farmers I think could have done a
32:13
Speaker 2: better job.
32:15
Speaker 1: You are onto something because trust me, I get into that.
32:19
Speaker 2: Okay.
32:20
Speaker 1: So this basically meant that the Great Emu War was
32:24
Speaker 1: in fact officially over and the military certainly did not win.
32:29
Speaker 1: Yet the larger problem remained unresolved, and in the months
32:32
Speaker 1: that followed, Australia would begin searching for other methods to
32:36
Speaker 1: protect its farms. Ironically, those alternatives would prove far more
32:40
Speaker 1: effective than the military campaign that had captured headlines around
32:44
Speaker 1: the world. Throughout the operation, newspapers across Australia reported extensively
32:49
Speaker 1: on the campaign, and the EMUs were the stars of
32:52
Speaker 1: the story. Reports described the birds as cunning opponents that
32:55
Speaker 1: were capable of out smarting trained soldiers, and observations that
33:00
Speaker 1: some flocks appeared to use lookout birds only strengthen that image.
33:05
Speaker 1: Major Meredith's famous remark that the EMUs could face machine
33:08
Speaker 1: guns with quote. The invulnerability of tanks end quote quickly
33:14
Speaker 1: entered public memory as well, and it remained one of
33:17
Speaker 1: the most frequently quoted lines associated with his entire situation.
33:21
Speaker 1: The reality, of course, was more complicated than the legend
33:25
Speaker 1: that eventually developed into this story. I mean Australia had
33:29
Speaker 1: not deployed its entire military against the EMUs. There was
33:32
Speaker 1: no battalions marching across the countryside, no large scale battles
33:35
Speaker 1: involving thousands of soldiers. The operation involved three military personnel,
33:41
Speaker 1: two machine guns, and a little over a month of
33:44
Speaker 1: field operations on and off. Yet the simplicity of the
33:48
Speaker 1: phrase quote Australia lost to war against birds end quote,
33:53
Speaker 1: proved to be too irresistible for future generations to ignore.
33:57
Speaker 1: And in all honesty, it's not even a false state
34:00
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. But as the military withdrew attention
34:04
Speaker 1: turned towards more practical solutions, and one of the most
34:08
Speaker 1: successful alternatives was the expansion of the bounty program See.
34:15
Speaker 1: Rather than relying on a small military force, the government
34:18
Speaker 1: encouraged local hunters and farmers to participate directly in controlling
34:23
Speaker 1: the EMU numbers, and these results were much more dramatic
34:29
Speaker 1: and successful During nineteen thirty four alone, approximately fifty seven
34:35
Speaker 1: thousand and thirty four bounty claims were reportedly submitted over
34:40
Speaker 1: a six month period, which was a massive result the
34:45
Speaker 1: military operation was never able to achieve.
34:49
Speaker 2: Fifty seven thousand.
34:51
Speaker 1: Fifty seven thousand and thirty four bounty claims were reportedly
34:55
Speaker 1: submitted in sixteen.
34:57
Speaker 2: Me, that's a lot, though. They've got to be worried
35:00
Speaker 2: that it's not going to make these things extinct.
35:03
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing. Yeah, that's conservation is trying to
35:06
Speaker 1: figure out numbers and how much to cull and went like, yeah,
35:10
Speaker 1: so that's totally on the conservation officer's job to make
35:12
Speaker 1: sure that that's not the case. And they didn't go
35:16
Speaker 1: over as far as my understanding, So the imu population
35:19
Speaker 1: is still thriving in Australia.
35:21
Speaker 2: Okay, good now.
35:22
Speaker 1: At the same time, authorities continued investing in fencing systems
35:25
Speaker 1: designed to protect farmland from wildlife. Maintaining those barriers was
35:30
Speaker 1: expensive and labor intensive, but fences offered something machine guns
35:35
Speaker 1: could not, a permanent obstacle that remained in place long
35:39
Speaker 1: after the soldiers had gone. Over time, improving fencing became
35:43
Speaker 1: one of the most effective methods of limiting large scale
35:47
Speaker 1: EMU incursions into agricultural districts. Requests for military assistants did
35:52
Speaker 1: not disappear entirely, though farmers would continue seeking government help
35:57
Speaker 1: during later EMU population surges, including requests made in nineteen
36:01
Speaker 1: thirty four, nineteen forty three and nineteen forty eight, but
36:07
Speaker 1: despite those appeals, the Australian government never again launched a
36:12
Speaker 1: military operation comparable to the campaign of nineteen thirty two.
36:16
Speaker 1: The lesson of the Emu War had become painfully clear.
36:20
Speaker 1: The emu's warfare was just too good. But that sentence
36:26
Speaker 1: is obviously a little over exaggerated, and as the years
36:29
Speaker 1: pass the events slowly transformed from a controversial government operation
36:33
Speaker 1: into one of Australia's most enduring histical historical story oddities,
36:39
Speaker 1: with many more exaggerations too, and the humor of the
36:43
Speaker 1: story ensured that it survived even generations seem to rediscover
36:48
Speaker 1: it every other year, and with each retelling the details
36:51
Speaker 1: often become slightly more dramatic. Eventually, the rise of the
36:55
Speaker 1: Internet turned the EMU War into a global phenomenon, introducing
36:59
Speaker 1: millions of people to a story that sounded completely fictional
37:03
Speaker 1: despite being entirely real and factual. In fact, at the
37:07
Speaker 1: beginning of this you even stated, is this real? I'm paraphrasing,
37:11
Speaker 1: but yeah, it didn't seem like it, But it very
37:14
Speaker 1: much so is. It's very much so true. And beneath
37:17
Speaker 1: the jokes and the memes lies a much more interesting
37:21
Speaker 1: historical reality. The Great Emu War was never truly about birds.
37:27
Speaker 1: It was a product of several large forces colliding, all
37:30
Speaker 1: at the same moment, returning veterans that had been settling
37:34
Speaker 1: on marginal farmland after the First World War. The Great
37:37
Speaker 1: Depression devastated agricultural markets and pushed many farming families to
37:42
Speaker 1: the brink of financial ruin. Drought conditions altered wildlife movements
37:46
Speaker 1: across the continent, and when approximately twenty thousand EMUs entered
37:51
Speaker 1: the Wheat Belt in search of food and water, they
37:53
Speaker 1: encountered communities that were already struggling to survive. The military
37:59
Speaker 1: operation that followed was unusual, but it did not emerge
38:02
Speaker 1: from nowhere. It was a desperate response to a desperate situation.
38:08
Speaker 1: And now, nearly a century later, the soldiers are gone.
38:11
Speaker 1: The farmers who fought to hold onto their land, well,
38:15
Speaker 1: they're gone too, And the machine guns have long since
38:18
Speaker 1: fallen silent, But the EMUs, however, they're still there. Every year,
38:24
Speaker 1: they continue moving across Australian's landscape, following the same instincts
38:28
Speaker 1: that guided their ancestors long before the first wheat field
38:31
Speaker 1: was planted in Western Australia. In that sense, perhaps the
38:35
Speaker 1: most remarkable part of the story is not that the
38:38
Speaker 1: military failed to stop them, but that after everything that
38:42
Speaker 1: had happened in nineteen thirty two, the EMUs are still
38:45
Speaker 1: doing exactly what they have always done. And that's why
38:48
Speaker 1: the Great Emu War continues to be remembered, not because
38:51
Speaker 1: it was Australia's most important military operation, but because it
38:55
Speaker 1: remains one of the strangest true stories ever told. As
39:00
Speaker 1: an army went up against EMUs and lost, and that's
39:08
Speaker 1: the story of the Great Emu War.
39:13
Speaker 2: Dang, I hope that there is an Emu statue somewhere.
39:16
Speaker 2: I just envisioned this like statue of gold, really somewhere
39:19
Speaker 2: with this a little plaque of kind of I don't know,
39:22
Speaker 2: an elevator pitch of the story.
39:25
Speaker 1: I'm looking this up right now to see if there's a.
39:27
Speaker 2: Statute needs to that's like a tourist attack at Attraction
39:31
Speaker 2: and a half.
39:32
Speaker 1: There's got to be there's there's there's some monuments for sure,
39:37
Speaker 1: but I don't see an EMU specific statue.
39:41
Speaker 2: I would go visit this. So if anyone is listening,
39:44
Speaker 2: they should probably have this in their town because it
39:47
Speaker 2: would it would bring people there. This is like, this
39:50
Speaker 2: is interest.
39:51
Speaker 1: It definitely is. And it's funny when you look up
39:54
Speaker 1: the Great Emu War two. I mean it's all totally photoshop,
39:58
Speaker 1: but there's like photos of like Emu's where like war
40:00
Speaker 1: helmets and like cigarettes legging out of their mouths and stuff.
40:03
Speaker 1: Just it's hilarious.
40:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, they they rised against you know, gosh, it's
40:12
Speaker 2: kind of sad. It is sad in a way.
40:13
Speaker 1: Oh it is.
40:14
Speaker 2: I'm like, is there not animal activists back then? But
40:17
Speaker 2: I understand too, it's like a conservation thing. We've had
40:20
Speaker 2: things like this, not even that long ago where it
40:23
Speaker 2: was I think like a bounty on wolves or something.
40:26
Speaker 2: They kept killing the moose in the area.
40:29
Speaker 1: I believe the bounty on wolves is still a thing
40:31
Speaker 1: here in BC. I haven't been a hunter for a
40:33
Speaker 1: few years, but yeah, because the population of wolves has
40:38
Speaker 1: gotten to a point where it's too great. So how
40:41
Speaker 1: it works if you're unaware and unfamiliar. If the population
40:44
Speaker 1: of a predator gets too high, what happens is they
40:48
Speaker 1: start eating too many other animals like moose and deer,
40:53
Speaker 1: and then those populations begin to draw and with the
40:57
Speaker 1: rise in the population of the predator and the prey
41:00
Speaker 1: population plummeting. Eventually the predator is going to run out
41:05
Speaker 1: of food and they will all starve to death. So
41:08
Speaker 1: the idea is, if you call the predator numbers down
41:11
Speaker 1: to a manageable amount, then the prey population will stay
41:16
Speaker 1: at a manageable amount and there will never be a
41:18
Speaker 1: scale tip where we have animals starving to death and
41:22
Speaker 1: animals getting eaten to death at an explosive rate. So
41:27
Speaker 1: it's a matter of balancing.
41:30
Speaker 2: But you know, it's like a predator thing, right. So
41:33
Speaker 2: the EMUs weren't necessarily predators.
41:35
Speaker 1: Though, No, But they were doing what their instinct is too,
41:38
Speaker 1: find the food, find the war.
41:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and causing some destruction in their path. Yes, but
41:45
Speaker 2: I don't know though, you showed me a video kind
41:47
Speaker 2: of scary. I feel like if one of those things
41:49
Speaker 2: was chasing me, I would I would.
41:51
Speaker 1: Probably be my pants, I'd ship my pants. Yeah, definitely
41:56
Speaker 1: would be what we're talking about, just like the other
41:59
Speaker 1: day in this podcast, about how if you're traveling somewhere
42:02
Speaker 1: you're packing lots of pairs of underwear. That's one of
42:05
Speaker 1: the times I need a spare pair.
42:07
Speaker 2: I think that might have been in our pre show.
42:09
Speaker 1: Oh was it the pre show?
42:10
Speaker 2: Okay, we're a little bit more candid in those in these,
42:14
Speaker 2: we don't really talk about shitting our pants so much.
42:16
Speaker 1: Not so much. The joke was though, when you go traveling,
42:19
Speaker 1: you always pack like way more underwear than you need
42:22
Speaker 1: because you're always like, well, what if I shit myself, which.
42:25
Speaker 2: You never do, but for some reason on when you're
42:29
Speaker 2: going on holidays, you think this is going to happen.
42:31
Speaker 1: Well, we want to go to Australia one day, and
42:33
Speaker 1: if we go there and we get chased by a
42:35
Speaker 1: fucking even were going to shit ourselves. So we need
42:37
Speaker 1: to make sure we have adequate underwear for going to Australia.
42:41
Speaker 2: Clearly, Yeah, so interesting. You know, I kind of want
42:46
Speaker 2: there to be some sort of outcome to where they're like,
42:48
Speaker 2: I don't know, using these animals for something like food
42:51
Speaker 2: or something.
42:52
Speaker 1: So I'm sure there was definitely some of that.
42:54
Speaker 2: For for sure, you can help.
42:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean that's also part of the conservation
42:59
Speaker 1: is you're not spoke to be I mean harvesting an
43:02
Speaker 1: animal at least when it comes to hunting or anything.
43:04
Speaker 1: You need to use the animal. You need to not
43:07
Speaker 1: just trophy hunt as it's called, and you know, take
43:11
Speaker 1: the antlers or take the mound, or take the hide.
43:13
Speaker 1: You're supposed to put the animal to use. And many
43:18
Speaker 1: hunters I know a lot of hunters. I do not
43:22
Speaker 1: know a single trophy hunter. And every single hunter I
43:25
Speaker 1: know hates trophy hunters. That's good, hates them.
43:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. But one last thing, I do almost kind of
43:35
Speaker 2: feel bad for those three, those three like military people,
43:39
Speaker 2: because they would never live this down.
43:42
Speaker 1: No.
43:42
Speaker 2: No, Now, the day they die, even after, it's probably
43:45
Speaker 2: on their grave marking. You know, this is it's kind
43:48
Speaker 2: of a big deal that they fucked this up so bad.
43:51
Speaker 1: Here lies Meredith in the ground, EMUs walk on, yeah
43:57
Speaker 1: like that.
43:57
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah in the end in EMU got him first.
44:01
Speaker 2: I don't know something, but Geez outlived.
44:04
Speaker 1: By as Yeah. Oh man, yeah, I'm sure they never
44:08
Speaker 1: did lift it down. No, but I'm at the same sense,
44:12
Speaker 1: three people that's not a lot.
44:15
Speaker 2: It's not.
44:16
Speaker 1: It's not a lot. So I give them credit where
44:18
Speaker 1: credit is due. They had a large task in front
44:20
Speaker 1: of them. Three people is not nearly enough, especially when
44:23
Speaker 1: you even have was it, ten thousand rounds of ammunition
44:26
Speaker 1: and you have twice the amount of birds you're supposed
44:28
Speaker 1: to kill, and the plan is to just mowe like
44:31
Speaker 1: automatic just burnt in a field of opening, like not
44:35
Speaker 1: every bullet's going to hit.
44:37
Speaker 2: I mean, they did kind of have when they were
44:40
Speaker 2: waiting at the water, you know, and then they just
44:43
Speaker 2: had some bad luck there, I guess with the the rifles.
44:46
Speaker 1: Jamming, for sure, But that did kind.
44:48
Speaker 2: Of seem like a good thought process.
44:50
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. But my point was the ammunition was clearly
44:54
Speaker 1: not enough, is what I was trying to say. Yeah,
44:56
Speaker 1: but no, Yeah, you're right for sure. Anyways, hopefully you
45:00
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed this episode and our last one. These two.
45:03
Speaker 1: As we mentioned a few times pre recorded, and in
45:06
Speaker 1: our next episode, we will be right back on track
45:09
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, doing as we usually do.
45:12
Speaker 2: So until then, stay wicked, Abo