Those We Forget

The official Australian casualty statistics for the men of the Australian Imperial Force in the First World War are seriously wrong, with significant inaccuracies and omissions. Groundbreaking research exhaustively examining more than 12,000 individual soldiers records has revealed that hospitalizations for wounding, illness, and injury suffered by men of the AIF are five times greater than officially acknowledged today. Why has it taken nearly 100 years for this to come to light? Was it a conspiracy to suppress the toll, incompetence of Australia's official war historians Bean and Butler, or was it simply the unquestioning acceptance of the official record? The startling findings in this study, which began when author David Noonan first read the letters written by his grandfather from the Western Front, rewrite Australia's casualty statistics of the First World War.

Over a decade ago, David Noonan read the first of more than a hundred letters written by his grandfather from the Western Front. That was the impetus for a journey that took him through France and Belgium, retracing his grandfather's footsteps. His interest turned into a PhD at the University of Melbourne's Department of History and Philosophical Studies and a course in statistical sampling methodology at the Statistical Consulting Centre, in the Department of Mathematics. His research into the truth of what really happened to the men of the AIF in the First World War has resulted in Those We Forget.