Messages in a bottle penned by two Australian soldiers in 1916 have been found more than a century later on the country's south-western coast.
The cheerful notes were written just a few days into their voyage to join the battlefields of France during World War One. One soldier, Pte Malcolm Neville, shared with his mother details about the real good food onboard, expressing they were as happy as Larry. Tragically, he would be killed in action at 28 years old. Conversely, Pte William Harley, aged 37 at the time, survived the war and returned home.
The letters have since been passed to their descendants, who were astounded by the find.
The bottle was discovered earlier this month on Wharton Beach, near Esperance in Western Australia, by local resident Deb Brown during a family outing to clean litter from the beach.
She shared, 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. Despite the paper being wet, both letters remained legible, prompting Ms. Brown to seek out the soldiers' families in hopes of returning the messages.
Through an online search, she located Pte. Neville's great-nephew, Herbie Neville, who described the experience as unbelievable—especially for his 101-year-old grandmother Marian Davies, who remembered her uncle leaving for war and never returning. Pte. Harley's letter, sent to whoever found the bottle, revealed his mother had passed away long before he wrote.
Harley's granddaughter, Ann Turner, expressed her family's amazement, saying, It really does feel like a miracle... Our grandfather has reached out for us from the grave. She felt emotional upon reading that Pte. Neville had someone to write to, contrasting with their grandfather's more solitary plight.
The bottle was thrown overboard in the Great Australian Bight, according to Pte. Harley's letter. An oceanography professor mentioned that it might have only been adrift for weeks before its final resting place at Wharton Beach, where it remained buried for looks like a century.
