It’s hoped items such as photographs and diaries could help locate some of Vietnam’s 300,000 missing war dead • Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noon

In 1967, in the Vietnamese jungle north-west of Da Nang, the Australian digger GW Dennis was serving as an adviser to South Vietnamese troops as they moved through a deserted village.

For now, it was quiet in this corner of the war. The place was devoid of any sign of habitation: there were no people, no animals, no bodies of those cut down in the fighting.

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The village was being razed but as the troops moved steadily through, Captain Dennis saw a human image.

It was a pen-and-ink drawing, a portrait of a woman, hanging out of a battered frame.

Dennis brought it down off the wall, removed the picture from its frame, rolled it up and placed it in his pack.

It left the war with him. He kept it for 45 years, not knowing of the picture’s provenance, or whom it represented.

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Then in 2012, a team of researchers and academics from the UNSW Canberra, put out a call to Vietnam veterans: Operation Wandering Souls sought to reunite artefacts, memorabilia and ephemera from the Vietnam war with their Vietnamese owners.

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In some cases, it was hoped, items such as photographs, diaries, letters or documents might help trace the whereabouts of the graves of some of Vietnam’s 300,000 soldiers missing in action from the conflict.

Dennis gladly handed over the picture, and a Vietnamese newspaper promoting the Wandering Souls project published a copy, asking if anybody knew whom it depicted.

Le Hang saw the picture and knew immediately: it was his mother, Phan Thi Vu.

Months later, and more than four decades after it left his family’s home, Le Hang was reunited with the picture. On the back of the portrait was written by hand the names of all eight of his mother’s children, including his.

“The smile never left his face,” Vietnam veteran, and UNSW visiting fellow, Derrill de Heer says of Le Hang when he was presented with the picture.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Writing on the back of the portrait of Phan Thi Vu.

On Anzac Day 2018, the UNSW Canberra team is putting out the call again for Operation Wandering Souls, asking for souvenirs, photos and other ephemera brought home from the war.

At the end of the Vietnam war, six Australians were listed as missing in action. Over the next 34 years, and with the diligent help of the Vietnamese people and authorities, all of those soldiers’ remains have been returned to Australia.

Recognising the vast number of Vietnamese still missing, Operation Wandering Souls would like, to whatever extent it can, to return that favour.

“We’re all getting old,” de Heer, who served two tours in Vietnam, says.

“The reminders of our lives as young soldiers that we picked up on the battlefield won’t be of much interest to our children. They’ll probably be thrown out once we’re gone. Now’s the time to do something with them. One thing that can be done with them is to return them to Vietnam where they may be reconnected with the family of a missing soldier.”

The nomenclature – Operation Wandering Souls – refers to a belief in Vietnamese culture, De Heer tells the Guardian, that the spirits of those who die in unknown places far from home, or who die violently, are fated to wander the earth forever unless a resting place can be found for families to perform the appropriate funereal ceremonies.

De Heer says it was deeply emotional – on all sides – for objects to be returned to the descendants of soldiers.

He has returned letters written by fathers to their children, and even, to two daughters, a certificate of bravery awarded to a Vietnamese soldier and stained with his own blood.

“They just hugged me and cried.”

Operation Wandering Souls began in 2012 by tracking the location of every battle fought by the 1st Australian Task Force which resulted in the death of a People’s Army or Viet Cong soldier.

Australian army policy was to bury the dead at the scene and document the burial.

Presented online as an interactive map, the data then linked 450 names to specific burial sites.

The third stage of Operation Wandering Souls saw the first collection of items returned to Vietnam.