Veterans revisiting battlegrounds of the Vietnam War to help reunite the families of fallen Viet Cong with personal effects

Ben Roberts-Smith knows how it feels to go to war.

But a trip to Vietnam with a group of veterans showed him a side of war he had never experienced.

"It was amazing to see these guys who were shooting at each other 40 years ago and are now able to sit down and have a beer together," he said.

"I can't imagine being able to do that."

Cpl Roberts-Smith, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in Afghanistan, spent four days revisiting battlegrounds of the Vietnam War and helping reunite the families of fallen Viet Cong with items taken from soldiers' bodies at the time.

Of all the items that were returned, some of which have spent decades tucked away in small military museums, one stuck in Cpl Roberts-Smith's mind.

"It was a picture a Vietnamese soldier had drawn of his wife and on the back of the picture he had written the names of his children," he said.

"When we went back his wife was still alive.

"To be able to give that back to her and see what it meant to her . . . she was overcome with emotion. You can only imagine what that's like.

"It was extremely emotional for them (the Australian veterans) at the point of handing back items to the families." "

The trip, dubbed Operation Wandering Souls, was the work of military researchers at the University of NSW, including Vietnam War veterans.

As well as collecting personal effects to return to the families of lost Viet Cong soldiers, the team has compiled a database of burial sites to help find those Vietnamese still deemed missing in action.

The project was deemed particularly important in part because Vietnamese culture considers those who die in unrecorded graves to be "wandering souls". The personal belongings of someone who has died also have significance.

Vietnam has previously helped Australia find and repatriate its dead soldiers.

Cpl Roberts-Smith said he jumped at the chance to visit.

"To be able to go and see the battlefields was fantastic," he said. "To be able to go with those Vietnamese veterans was a once in a lifetime experience.

"It was a humbling experience to see what it meant to them. I know that feeling, I know why they did what they did.

"From an Aussie point-of-view or a soldier point-of-view I think it was important to go back and pay my respects to the men who lost their lives there."

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/18937807/vietnam-visit-humbles-hero/

Search for remains of Bosnian victims continues

The Missing Persons Institute (MPI) of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday will continue to search for the bodies of victims at the recently found mass graves at the Tomasica site near Prijedor (Bosnia).

The existence of the mass graves was discovered by a former member of the Army of the Republika Srpska.

Head of the Regional Office of the MPI of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mujo Begic told the Anadolu Agency (AA) today that the teams found the skeletal remains of one female person on Thursday.

"We found one more body. The skeletal remains are mostly complete”, he said adding that teams will continue the activities on Monday.

The director of the (MPI) of Bosnia and Herzegovina Amor Masovic said earlier to the AA that victims were probably prisoners of Prijedor concentration camps, Keraterm and Trnopolje during the last Bosnian war.

According to the first opinion of pathologists, most of them were killed in other locations, and then relocated to the area of ??the Tomasica site and hidden under the layers of soil.

Revelation of mass tomb at the Tomasica site near city of Prijedor which is assumed to be the largest in the last ten years that has been found in northwestern Bosnia re-opened, never healed, wounds of Prijedor Bosniaks and Croats.

Mass graves at the site Tomasica near Prijedor originates from the Bosnian war, and is thought to hide non-Serb victims from the city of Prijedor and around which have remained missing since 1992.

So far found and identified are 2,082 victims of Prijedor and still search for about 1,200 Bosniak and Croatian victims killed during the war in and around the Prijedor area continues.

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=117960

24 killed in Afghan mine collapse

A tunnel collapsed in a coal mine in Afghanistan's north, killing at least 24 workers and leaving three others missing.

Some 14 area residents trying to aid in the rescue were overcome by fumes and had to get treatment.

Workplace safety standards are poor in Afghanistan as in many developing nations, and such accidents are common. But concern about such standards is likely to grow in the coming years as the government tries to develop a wealth of mineral resources in the country - a challenging goal as it battles a Taliban insurgency.

The mine tunnel collapse occurred on Saturday in Ruyi Du Ab district of Samangan province, a remote area where the insurgency does not have a significant presence yet. A police official said more than 1,000 villagers in the area rushed to the scene, using their hands, shovels and other tools to try to dig out the workers.

Akram Baigzad, the provincial police chief, said 24 bodies had been recovered of a total of 27 workers. Fumes left around 14 rescuers with breathing problems, but none died as a result, he said.

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/24-killed-in-afghan-mine-collapse-29580715.html

Bodies of 2 pilots found nearly 72 years after Lake Muskoka crash

More than 70 years after their plane crashed into Lake Muskoka, the bodies of two airmen have finally been recovered.

Leading Aircraftsman Theodore (Ted) Bates of the Royal Canadian Air Force and Flight Lieutenant Peter Campbell, a member of the British air force, will be buried in Guelph, Ont. on Tuesday with military honours.

They went missing on Dec. 13, 1940 when their Nomad 3521 collided mid-air with another aircraft.

Theodore Bates and Peter Campbell went missing after their plane plunged into an Ontario lake during a search and rescue exercise.

The Canadian navy’s diving unit recovered their bodies nearly a year ago, but the Department of National Defence did not formally announce that until Friday.

The government said it withheld the information from the public to protect “against disturbance" of the crash site. “It’s been a long time, but there is going to be closure,” Bates’ brother Tom told CTV Barrie.

In a news release, Minister of National Defence Rob Nicholson said the recovery “will provide closure to the families of Flight Lieutenant Campbell and Leading Aircraftsman Bates, as well as reassure them that the ultimate sacrifice made by their loved ones will never be forgotten.”

Bates and Campbell went missing during a search-and-rescue operation involving another airman who had disappeared during training the previous day. Their plane collided with Nomad 3512, another aircraft that had been searching for the same pilot.

The wreckage of Nomad 3512 and its pilots were recovered shortly after the crash. But many feared that Bates and Campbell’s bodies were lost forever.

In 2007, Matt Fairbrass, who heads up the Lost Airmen Project, discovered the missing wreckage using a side-scan sonar.

“We had no idea there was actually remains, we were just hoping to have artifacts for an exhibit,” Fairbrass told CTV. The OPP’s Underwater Search and Recovery unit eventually located the aircraft in 2010.

At that time, divers recovered personal effects and the aircraft's three .30 calibre machine guns.

The Royal Canadian Air Force said it’s now working out the logistics of pulling the plane wreckage from the lake.

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/bodies-of-2-pilots-found-nearly-72-years-after-lake-muskoka-crash-1.1455328

Two bodies found, 15 missing as ferry capsizes in western Bangladesh

Two bodies were found and 15 people were still missing after a boat sank into the mighty river Padma in western Bangladesh Saturday evening, police and fire service said Sunday.

Abdur Rahman, a fire service official at Rajshahi district, some 256 km west of capital Dhaka, told Xinhua by phone Sunday morning that a overcrowded ferry carrying around 50 passengers sank into the mighty river Padma late Saturday afternoon due to rough weather.

Rahman said around 35 passengers swam to shore, but 15 others remained missing.

He said the rescuers of the fire service recovered the bodies of a kid and a man from the river.

The strong current of the mighty river was hampering the rescue operation, he said, adding that rescuers suspended the operation at 8 p.m. local time Saturday.

Fire service men feared the strong current might flush the bodies of the missing passenger to the downstream of the river.

Ferry and boat disasters are common in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by about 250 rivers. Ferry is still a key means of transport in the country. Most of the ferry boats are often overcrowded.

At least 112 bodies were recovered after a ferry capsized in Bangladesh's central Munshiganj district in March 2012.

Sunday 15 September 2013

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/811381.shtml