Note from the Past

Message in a Bottle: Letter From Troops Heading to First World War Floats Home After 109 Years

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Messages in a bottle written by two Australian soldiers a few days into their voyage to the battlefields of France during World War I have been found more than a century later on Australia´s coast.

The Brown family found the Schweppes-brand bottle just above the waterline at Wharton Beach near Esperance in Western Australia state on Oct. 9, Deb Brown said on Tuesday.

Her husband Peter and daughter Felicity made the find during one of the family´s regular quad bike expeditions to clear the beach of trash.

“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.

Inside the clear, thick glass were cheerful letters written in pencil by Privates Malcolm Neville, 27, and William Harley, 37, dated Aug. 15, 1916.

Their troop ship HMAT A70 Ballarat had left the South Australia state capital Adelaide to the east on Aug. 12 of that year on the long journey to the other side of the world where its soldiers would reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on Europe´s Western Front.
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Neville wrote to his mother he was “having a real good time, food is real good so far, with the exception of one meal which we buried at sea.”

The ship was “heaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry,” Neville wrote, using a now faded Australian colloquialism meaning very happy.

Neville wrote that he and his comrades were, “Somewhere at Sea.” Harley wrote that they were, “Somewhere in the Bight,” referring to the Great Australian Bight. That´s an enormous open bay that begins east of Adelaide and extends to Esperance on the western edge.

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Harley survived the war and returned to Adelaide. Living relatives were stunned at the “unbelievable discovery” when notified of the find. Amazing story that it was found.

Category: We Remember, WWI