VietNamNet Bridge - In late July, more than 100 handwritten letters, dozens of sketches, watercolors, poetry pages, certificates of merit ... of Vietnamese soldiers who went missing after the battles with Australian and New Zealand forces were returned to Vietnam.

Australian veteran Laurens Wildeboer and veteran Derrill de Heer met Mrs. Nguyen Thi Hieu, 85, in Dong Nai, mother of martyr Phan Van Ban to hand over Ban’s handbook and scarf.

Australian veterans expected that these keepsakes would reach the families of Vietnamese fallen soldiers, thus wandering souls would come back home soon.

"Operation Wandering Souls” is a project to support Vietnam to locate and identify the remains of the Vietnamese soldiers who went missing in clashes with Australia and New Zealand forces.

The project is implemented by a group of Australian academics at the University of New South Wales (Australian Defense Academy) who took part in the Vietnam War.

"We also researched official records of Australia and identified the names of about 600 fallen soldiers of Vietnam. We intend to bring the data to Vietnam at the end of July, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Australia," wrote Dr. Bob Hall, in an email to Tien Phong Newspaper.

Earlier, the group sent some data about the burial places of martyrs and their mementos for some organizations and individuals in Vietnam.

Historian Bob Hall said, for many years, the group focused on studying Australian military operations in the period of 1966-1971 in Phuoc Tuy Province (now Ba Ria - Vung Tau), Long Khanh and Bien Hoa (Dong Nai). They also hold around 90 letters from the battlefields in Binh Dinh.

In addition to identifying the burial places of Vietnamese martyrs, the "Operation Wandering Souls" project also collects artifacts that Australian and New Zealand troops collected from Vietnam martyrs, then return them to Vietnamese families.

Each letter with mud stains, sketched by black pencil or watercolor, torn certificates of merit, medical documents with decorated with romantic patterns that the research team collected is a different plight.

A letter from soldier Dao Dac Luyen (PO Box 44 195 BS) to his wife Le Thi Hy (Huu Giang village, Binh Giang commune, Binh Khe district, Binh Dinh Province) wrote: "We have been far from each other for over 14 years. How much love and nostalgia that I want to share with you, how many stories that we want to tell you but until we destroy all enemies, I can tell them all. Again I remind you to send our son to school…."

The story of a ring

A letter sent from a father to his son who was a soldier: "I wish you to become a hero.”

According to the Australian team, on December 9, 1970, a platoon of the Royal Australian Regiment ambushed around 7km east of Xuyen Moc Village, Xuyen Moc District, Phuoc Tuy Province.

At 7.25 am, Vietnam attacked the position of the Australian platoon with mortars and heavy guns. However, the Vietnam Liberation Army was unsure of the ambush position of Australian troops so the attack did not focus on this position. In this battle, a Vietnam soldier sacrificed.

After the battle, Australian soldiers found a gold ring and some documents of the fallen soldier. The documents were then sent to the center in Nui Dat for intelligence assessment. The results showed that the Vietnamese soldier is a member of K9 Company, Battalion D440. However, the K9 Company was transferred to Battalion D445 and became C3 Company of this battalion.

The documents identify the martyrs as Nguyen Van Sang, born in Quang Ngai, a squad leader of C3 Company of Battalion D445. He is the vice squad. The documentation includes a certificate of merit, a Communist Party member card and a promotion recorded dated August 1970.

Unfortunately, these materials were not stored by the Australian Army but transferred to the Document Exploitation Center of the U.S. military command in Saigon, and then the Australian team had no further information about the fate of the materials.

"Particularly the gold ring was kept by the Australian Army. If we cannot find the family of this martyr, we will give the ring for the Government of Vietnam," said Mr. Derrill de Heer, a team member, who participated in two wars of Australia, told Tien Phong before coming to Vietnam.

Soldier portrait

The portrait of a Vietnamese soldier printed from the film stored since 1968.

According to documents provided by the "Operation Wandering Souls" project, on August 12, 1968, New Zealand soldiers in Platoon 3, W Company, Battalion 4RAR/NZ joined a campaign in Ba Ria - Vung Tau.

Platoon 3 ambushed near a small river in the western Dinh Mountain. At 2.50 pm, two soldiers of the Liberation Army of Vietnam moved towards the ambush area. One soldier was shot. The remaining soldier tried to take the body of his comrade back but the rain of bullets forced him to leave his teammate. There were blood stains showing that he was also injured. After that, they found two CKC rifles, two grenades and cooking utensils.

Finding a negative film carried by the fallen Vietnamese soldier, the New Zealand soldiers kept, hoping to identify the martyr and provide intelligence information. The film was developed and it was the portrait of a Liberation Army soldier who was supposed to belong to a military medical unit.

"We do not know whether the photograph is the portrait of the Vietnam soldier who died in the ambush or not, but I guess so. The intelligence staff of the W Company (who did not attend the clash) kept the negative film and returned it to New Zealand. He hoped the photograph will be returned to their family of the Vietnamese soldier," said Heer.

The Long Tan sketch

One of about 40 black and white sketches kept from the Long Tan battle.

The Australian research team said, on August 18, 1966, the Vietnam Liberation Army forces and a company of Australia faced at the Long Tan rubber plantation in Phuoc Tuy province.

The 275 Regiment and the D445 Battalion of Vietnam, with the support of the logistics unit attacked the D Company of Battalion 6 of the Australian Royal Regiment.

It was a fierce battle that the Australians usually called Long Tan battle. It was the largest battle of the Australian troops in the war in Vietnam and August 18 has become a special day for Australia, particularly Australian veterans who served in Vietnam.

On the morning of August 19, 1966, D Company and the other companies returned to the battlefield to search for the bodies of Australian soldiers and to bury Vietnamese soldiers one by one, at the place where they fell.

An Australian officer supervising the burial discovered a notebook in the bag of a Vietnamese soldier with vivid sketches which show the life of this soldier and his comrades.

The officer retained the notebook and the sketches and in 2012 he donated them to the "Operation Wandering Souls" project in the hope that the memorabilia will return to Vietnam. "If we cannot find the family of the soldier or veterans of Regiment 275, we will present the mementos to the Dong Nai Museum," said Heer.

The heart of Australian veterans

The return of remains of the missing in action (MIA) troops in the Vietnam War is the humanitarian work of the government of Vietnam, showing the morality of the Vietnamese throughout its long history and has been highly appreciated by the relevant government (U.S., Australia ...). The MIA issue of Australian has been solved.

"People who participate in the project “Operation Wandering Souls” desired response to the goodwill of Vietnam by providing useful information for finding the remains and to return the memorabilia of fallen Vietnamese soldiers in the Vietnam War," said Mr. Nguyen Quang Trung, Minister Resident of the Vietnam Embassy in Australia.

The Vietnam War left legacies to varying degrees for Australian veterans.

"Australian veteran Brian in Western Australia is a typical example. He has a brother who also participated in the Vietnam War and after returning to Australia, he committed suicide. Brian himself always agonized about the war and this year he returned to Vietnam with the desire to find the remains of a number of Vietnamese martyrs who he witnessed their sacrifice,” Trung said.

In the framework of the project “Operation Wandering Souls,” last year an Australian veteran felt very much relieved when returning the towel for the 85-year-old mother of a fallen Vietnamese soldier.

Tien Phong