War detectives try to solve mystery of Australia's lost soldiers

The back of the watch is bent and buckled, blown apart by the force of the explosion.

It is not much to go on, but the remnants of his great-uncle's watch are a starting point as Ken Murphy begins the task of finding his grave.

"I don't know what happens when you step on a landmine, but [the watch shows that] evidently it is not good," he said.

"It must have been an horrific explosion."

Finding missing soldiers

Mr Murphy, from Eureka, New South Wales, is one of thousands of Australians living with the generational grief of missing family members.

That is where the team of the Unrecovered War Casualties — Army (UWC—A) team comes in.

The organisation, funded by the Australian Defence Force, uses military records, eye-witness accounts, DNA and excavation to find missing soldiers from p