He is trying to gather records of "bushcraft", the Indigenous knowledge of food, medicine, signaling and tracking to defend Australia under threat of invasion in WWII.

The Federation University associate professor and expert in Indigenous history is once again trying to offer insight in what he said was a noticeable gap in Australian history books.

He said there had been plenty of "outstanding works" presenting new insights into Indigenous Peoples contributions to Australia's WWII efforts but not when it came to using Aboriginal knowledge as a strategic tool in preparing to face a land-based Japanese invasion.

Associate Professor Cahir will particularly focus on key soldier's attempts to alert Australian army commanders of such potential tactics and why, when used, Aboriginal knowledge "slipped from our collective historical memory".

This picks up on themes from Associate Professor Cahir's provocative telling of the colonisation of Wadawurrung land for which he deliberately did not seek Indigenous voices. His book, My Country All Gone - the white men have stolen it, aimed to highlight the seemingly lost accounts of Aboriginal people working alongside and integrating white settlers in a cross-cultural exchange.

Often, he said, this Aboriginal knowledge helped keep settlers alive and face bush conditions.

Associate Professor Cahir is a non-Indigenous Australian. He said this was a challenge in telling stories of Indigenous experience in a way that was sympathetic to Peoples who had a non-literate lifestyle tradition and effectively had been left out of mainstream Australian history books.

But he also knows first-hand the need to rely on Aboriginal advice on Country.

Self-described "young, dumb and blonde", Associate Professor Cahir ran out of food and water when cycling solo on the Nullabor Plain. He had been cycling from Perth to Melbourne in 1983.

Once in Victoria, Cahir sought advice from Aboriginal community members. When Cahir arrived in Ballarat, he asked the university librarian to direct him to the section on Indigenous Australians - he was shown one book.

"I have always been fascinated to try and highlight stories of Aboriginal peoples contributing to the national story," he said. "I believe it has been contemporaneous to the armed forces doing so well."

His new project for Federation University has been funded by the Australian Army History Unit. This will, when pandemic conditions permit, take Associate Professor Cahir's search to archives in Western Australia, Canberra and the Northern Territory.

He wants to find information on the individuals, and their letters and memos, who persuaded then- Prime Minister John Curtin and military leaders to use Aboriginal knowledge.

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"Some Australian Army commanders discovered that Aboriginal people were very skilled at guerrilla tactics and quickly realised that they didn't need to train them a great deal - in fact, quite the opposite. They thought it would be very wise and prudent to enable Aboriginal people to pass on their skills, tracking in particular," Associate Professor Cahir said.

"Being able to find food and water - these were skills that the general army needed in those particular areas if they were going to fight a rearguard action against the Japanese."

Associate Professor Cahir's project is in early stages. Until he can travel interstate, research will keep him trawling through online articles and books for records of using Aboriginal knowledge. This includes evidence Indigenous medicine helped prevent sea-sickness in the Allies' D-Day landing.

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