Century-Old WWI Soldiers' Letters Discovered in Bottle on Australian Beach: A Remarkable Historical Connection

Malcolm Alexander Neville enlisted in 1916.

Melbourne, Australia:

Letters in a bottle written by two Australian soldiers during their voyage to France amid World War I have been discovered on an Australian beach more than a century after they were written.

On October 9, the Brown family discovered a Schweppes bottle just above the waterline at Wharton Beach near Esperance in Western Australia, as Deb Brown explained on Tuesday.

Her husband Peter and daughter Felicity made this remarkable discovery during one of their regular quad bike expeditions dedicated to cleaning trash from the beach.

"We regularly clean our beaches and never ignore any rubbish. This little bottle was simply lying there waiting for someone to pick it up," Deb Brown shared.

Inside the clear, thick glass container were optimistic messages written in pencil by Privates Malcolm Neville, 27, and William Harley, 37, dated August 15, 1916.

Their troop ship HMAT A70 Ballarat had departed from Adelaide, South Australia, on August 12 that year, embarking on the lengthy journey across the world to reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on Europe's Western Front.

Neville lost his life in action a year later. Harley suffered wounds twice but survived the war, eventually passing away in Adelaide in 1934 from cancer that his family attributes to German gas attacks in the trenches.

Neville requested that the bottle's finder deliver his letter to his mother Robertina Neville in Wilkawatt, now virtually abandoned in South Australia. Harley, whose mother had passed away by 1916, was content for the finder to keep his note.

Harley wrote, "may the finder be as well as we are at present."

Neville wrote to his mother 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 described the ship as "heaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry," using an Australian expression meaning extremely happy.

Neville indicated they were "Somewhere at Sea," while Harley specified "Somewhere in the Bight," referring to the Great Australian Bight – a vast open bay extending from east of Adelaide to Esperance on the western edge.

Deb Brown believes the bottle likely didn't travel far. It probably remained buried in the sand dunes for over a century. Recent extensive erosion caused by massive swells along Wharton Beach likely uncovered it.

Although the paper was wet, the writing remained legible. This allowed Deb Brown to contact both soldiers' relatives about the discovery.

The bottle "is in pristine condition. It doesn't have any growth of barnacles on it. I believe that if it had been at sea or exposed for that long, the paper would've disintegrated from the sun. We wouldn't have been able to read it," she explained.

Harley's granddaughter Ann Turner said her family was "absolutely stunned" by the find.

"We just can't believe it. It really does feel like a miracle and we do very much feel like our grandfather has reached out for us from the grave," Turner told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Neville's great nephew Herbie Neville said his family had been brought together by the "unbelievable" discovery.

"It sounds as though he was pretty happy to go to the war. It's just so sad what happened. It's so sad that he lost his life," Herbie Neville said.

"Wow. What a man he was," the great nephew added with pride.