Overview
- Debra Brown and her family uncovered a Schweppes bottle containing two handwritten notes on October 9 during a cleanup at Wharton Beach near Esperance, with the pencil writing still legible after careful drying.
- The letters are dated August 15, 1916 and were written by Australian soldiers Malcolm Alexander Neville, 27, and William Kirk Harley, 37, while aboard the troopship HMAT A70 Ballarat soon after departing Adelaide.
- The men reported being in good spirits en route to reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on the Western Front, with Neville noting he was having a "really good time" and Harley wishing the finder "as well as we are now."
- Neville was killed in France in April 1917, while Harley survived the war with wounds and died in Adelaide in 1934 from cancer, which his family believes was linked to wartime gas exposure.
- Using archival records, including the Australian War Memorial, the Browns identified descendants and delivered the notes, prompting emotional responses such as Harley’s granddaughter calling the discovery "like a miracle."