A discovery made on October 9 at Wharton Beach in the state of Western Australia, where the Brown family found a thick glass bottle from the Schweppes brand during a beach clean-up.
The mother of the family, Deb Brown, said, “We often clean the beaches, we never ignore any trash. This little bottle was waiting for us there.”
1916 sea voyage letters
Inside the bottle were two letters written in pencil. The letters were written on August 15, 1916, by 27-year-old Pte Malcolm Neville and 37-year-old Pte William Harley.
The two soldiers were on the ship HMAT A70 Ballarat, which had set sail for the fronts in France just a few days after leaving Australia. This ship was carrying reinforcements for the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion fighting on the Western Front in Europe.
Neville lost his life in combat a year later. Harley was wounded twice but survived the war. In 1934, he died from an illness which his family said was cancer “caused by German gas exposure in the trenches.”
“Seasick but our spirits are high”
In his letter to his mother Robertina Neville, Neville wrote, “We are having a really good time. The food is good, except for one meal, which we buried at sea.” He used the expressions, “The ship is rocking but we are very happy.”
Harley had written, “May the finder be as good as us.”
Neville had requested that if his letter was found, it should be delivered to his mother. Harley had noted that since his mother had died, his letter could remain with the person who found it.
The bottle remained hidden in the sand for a century
Deb Brown thinks the bottle was probably not in the sea but buried in the coastal dunes for a long time. “The bottle is completely clean, there are no traces of sea life on it. If it had been in the sea for that long, the papers would have rotted away,” she said.
Since the writings were still legible, the family reached out to the relatives of both soldiers.
Emotional reunion in the families
Harley’s granddaughter Ann Turner described the discovery as a “miracle”: “It’s truly incredible. We feel like our grandfather is calling out to us from the grave.”
Neville’s great-nephew Herbie Neville said, “It’s an incredible discovery that brought our family together. He says he went to war happy, but the end was so tragic. What a great man he was.”
