Burial to follow Aussies' repatriations

More than 50 years after their deaths, Australian casualties of conflicts overseas will be buried by their families at home.

The bodies of 33 servicemen and civilians, who were buried in Singapore and Malaysia, arrived at Richmond's RAAF base on Thursday.

Twenty-two served in the Vietnam War, three in Malaysia, two were spouses and six were children.

"It was leaving him there that was the hardest part. I had to walk away and come home without him," Sara Ferguson, who was 21 and pregnant when her husband Lieutenant David Brian was killed near the Thai-Malay border in 1964, said on Thursday.

"He was the only one in that cemetery and I had to walk away and come home without him."

Laws changed in 1966 to allow families to have loved ones repatriated at the government's expense but the laws were not retrospective.

Over the next three weeks families will hold private burials, including for Lt Brian in Brisbane.