The Medical Care of the Australian soldiers on the Kokoda Track

In the discussion, Jan McLeod will draw on the diary and photographs belonging to her great-uncle, who served as a medical orderly in the 2/4th Field Ambulance, 7th Division AIF. How prepared was the Australian Army’s medical service? Could (should) we have done better? Was suffering simply an inevitable consequence of fighting a war in Papua?

Dr Jan McLeod lives in Lake Macquarie and is a historian at the University of Newcastle. Her research interests include the history of military medicine, with a focus on the Australian Army in World War Two. Her first book was published in 2019. She is currently working on a second publication, with the support of an Australian Army History Unit Research Grant.

The book: Shadows on the Track: Australia’s Medical War in Papua 1942-1943 (Big Sky Publishing 2019), critically examines a wide range of medical issues related to the Papuan Campaign and the battles fought along the Kokoda Track, at Milne Bay, and at the Beachheads. There is a focus on the Australian Army Field Ambulance units that provided frontline medical care to thousands of sick and wounded Australian soldiers.

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