Two handwritten letters penned by Australian soldiers on their way to the battlefields of France during World War I have surfaced on a remote stretch of beach in Western Australia — more than a century after they were written.
According to The Associated Press, the Brown family made the extraordinary discovery on Oct. 9 while cleaning up Wharton Beach near Esperance, Western Australia.
“We do a lot of cleaning up on our beaches and so would never go past a piece of rubbish. So this little bottle was lying there waiting to be picked up,” Deb Brown said Tuesday.
Inside the clear Schweppes-brand bottle were pencil-written letters dated Aug. 15, 1916, from Privates Malcolm Neville, 27, and William Harley, 37. The pair had just embarked on the troop ship HMAT A70 Ballarat, which departed Adelaide three days earlier to reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on Europe’s Western Front.
Neville was killed in action a year later, while Harley — wounded twice and later gassed in the trenches — survived the war but died in 1934 from related cancer, according to his family.
Neville’s note asked that the finder deliver it to his mother, Robertina Neville, in the now-abandoned town of Wilkawatt, South Australia. Harley, whose mother had already died, wrote that the finder could keep his message.
“May the finder be as well as we are at present,” Harley wrote. Neville added that he was “having a real good time, food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal which we buried at sea.”
He also noted, “The ship was heaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry.”
The bottle’s pristine condition suggests it likely spent the past century buried in sand dunes, only recently unearthed by coastal erosion.
“It really does feel like a miracle,” said Ann Turner, Harley’s granddaughter. “It feels like our grandfather has reached out for us from the grave.”
Neville’s great nephew, Herbie Neville, added, “It’s just so sad what happened. Wow. What a man he was.”
