Physical description

Hardcover with dark purple dust jacket. Title printed in white along the spine and a white spine label sticker at the base. The front cover shows an image of three men carrying another man on a stretcher through thick mud. The lower half of the cover shows the title details in large white print.

Publication type

non-fiction

Inscriptions & markings

'PROPERTY OF VICTORIAN BRANCH R.S.L.' [stamped in red ink on the title page and bottom of page block]

Summary

The Australian Army was woefully unprepared to fight a medical war in Papua and the soldiers paid the price. Almost 30,000 soldiers suffered from illness and tropical diseases, and an estimated 6000 were killed or wounded during the six-month campaign. These statistics have traditionally been represented as unavoidable consequences of fighting a war in a place such as Papua. This book disputes that narrative. Death and disease were inevitable outcomes, but the scale of the suffering was not. The medical challenges presented in Papua were extreme - they were not insurmountable. Shadows on the Track considers a wide range of issues that impacted on the health of the Australian soldiers before, during and after the Papuan campaign was fought and won. The strengths, successes, shortcomings and failures of the medical campaign are identified, analysed and evaluated. The focus on the front-line medical personnel - the men of the field ambulance units - brings a new perspective to the battles of the Kokoda Track, Milne Bay and the Beachheads. [taken from Trove record]