General News
11 July, 2025
Field pack returned to veteran 54 years on
Some 54 years after Lee Turton returned from his service in Vietnam, the very same field pack he carried throughout those years miraculously found its way back to him.
The very last moment Mr Turton held that same bag was on a humid afternoon in Nui Dat, October 1971.
He hurled it upon a growing mass of field items belonging to other soldiers and servicemen, all of whom were informed they would soon be returning home.
“We didn’t actually come out of the scrub to Nui Dat until about a fortnight before we actually came home, and that was to clean up and get rid of all our gear and ammunition. We threw it down in a heap in front of the queue store,” he said.
“Nearly half of everyone’s packs were thrown on that pile. You’re looking at 130 blokes. Nearly half of everyone’s packs were there.”
Mr Turton walked away from that pile only ever thinking about that bag again when his back hurt.
He assumed it would later be burnt.
Over five decades later, a Sydney based fine artist and actor, Andre de Vanny, began collecting military materials at a disposals store in Sydney’s west.
“I was collecting a lot of military materials, my dad was in the Reserves, and he’s worked for defence all my life, so I was kind of interested in those materials,” he said.
“I had found a couple of bags at this Peter’s Military and Camping supplies store that were from Vietnam, and I just couldn’t go past them. They were just full of history.
“I wanted to use them in my studio and my art making practice but I didn’t have a set idea of what I was going to do with them.”
Mr de Vanny thoroughly checked each one. Turning around one of the torn and frayed field packs, he just managed to make out a name.
“T -U -R -T -O -N, that’s all it said. It didn’t have a number or anything that some of the others did,” he said.
“I went home, and I started looking it up, just because I didn’t want to use any of these bags against the wishes of any of the soldiers or their families who might want them returned.
“All I had was that surname. Luckily, it popped up online, flagged through an association and article based in Maryborough. But I still didn’t know that it was his bag. I kept searching, and found an email at the end of a veterans newsletter. It said ‘L Turton’. I thought ‘well, it’s worth a shot’.”
Mr Turton received that email earlier this year, explaining what was found.
“I thought it was a scam to start with. I asked him how he got my details. But when he got back to me with an answer the same day, that’s how I knew it was legitimate. It had photos.”
The pair arranged a much anticipated exchange of the bag.
“One day, I just got an email back saying he was working in Melbourne, and he could come up to Castlemaine and bring the pack with him, and get the bus to Maryborough. I said, ‘you get to Castlemaine and I’ll meet you at Castlemaine train station’,” Mr Turton said.
“On the day, I couldn’t see him, I had no idea what he looked like. Quite a few got off the train. I watched, looked behind me, and saw this bloke coming down with the pack on his shoulder. I thought, ‘bloody hell’.”
The simple exchange lasted nearly two hours.
“I didn’t know how he might feel about it. I didn’t want to make too big of a ceremony of it, in case he might be quite a private person,” Mr de Vanny said.
“I was happy to meet him and looking forward to asking some questions. He seemed quite taken aback by it. We had a coffee and a chat for over an hour or so. He said, ‘I feel like I’ve got a piece of me back’.”
Where that mound of ex-servicemen’s bags and clothes ended up after the war, is not fully understood.
Peter Milazzo has run that disposals store for around 40 years. Although he recalls Mr de Vanny buying it, he isn’t even sure how it got there.
“The goods go to auction through the government department. I’ve got a big warehouse, I might have bought that pack. But I might have bought it 30 or 40 years ago. I didn’t even know it was in the warehouse somewhere,” he said.
“However, I do buy and sell everything, and anyone could have handed it in to me.”
Regardless, Mr Turton was grateful and surprised by Mr de Vanny’s effort.
“When I was contacted I thought ‘oh yeah, I’ll have that, it’s part of my life,” he said.
“When I met with Andre, we never bothered to get up again. We had one coffee, and then another one. We just kept chatting.
“When I look back, I think to myself ‘what would I have been if I hadn’t have gone in the national service? Would my life have been the same?’ I crammed a lot into those few months. The bag is part of another chapter in my life.”