Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

In 2025, Wharton Beach local Debra Brown and her family discovered a bottle containing two letters from the soldiers, while cleaning up a beach.

One letter was written by Private William Kirk Harley, who later returned from the war. For his granddaughter Ann Turner, finding the letter "feels like a miracle". "We are all absolutely stunned. There are five grandchildren who are still alive," she said. "We're all in constant contact since it happened and we just can't believe it. "We do very much feel like our grandfather has reached out to us from the grave."

But Ms Turner said the letter was a poignant reminder of how optimistic the soldiers had been as they were shipped off to war. "I think he would have been absolutely delighted to finally be off to go to war, and so I think that's where the optimism comes from," she said. "I feel very emotional when I see that the other young man had a mother to write to, and that message in the bottle was to his mother, whereas our grandfather long ago had lost his mother so he just writes it to the finder of the bottle."

Ms Brown said it had been emotional to read the letters. "This poor darling had gone off, not knowing what he was about to face, and he seemed quite chipper in the letter," she said.

Since the discovery, Ms Brown has tracked down the great-nephew of one of the soldiers, Private Malcolm Alexander Neville, who came from Wilkawatt, a small town near Lameroo in South Australia. "All I did was type in Neville and Wilkawatt, those two words, and Herbie's profile came up," she said. Ms Brown rang the workplace listed on Herbie Neville's Facebook page. He responded a few days later.

Mr Neville told ABC's Sally Sara the experience had been "unbelievable" for his family. "It's been amazing how much has come to the surface in his short time in WWI," Mr Neville said. Private Neville's war records show he enlisted in early 1916 but was discharged after a month because of his poor eyesight.

He re-enlisted a week later and joined the service corps. "I think that just shows you his character, how determined he was," Mr Neville said. He said his aunt, who was now 101, always told stories over the years of "Uncle Malcolm" and how he never returned home from the war.

Just months after he threw the bottle overboard in 1916, Private Neville was killed in action in France, at the age of 28. His parents and their six children had emigrated from Scotland, but it was unclear how they came to Wilkawatt.

The letter from Private Harley said the ship was "somewhere in the Bight" when the bottle was thrown overboard. University of Western Australia coastal oceanography professor Charitha Pattiaratchi said objects such as bottles could be carried very large distances, but their final destination may also be unpredictable. He said the bottle may have been in the ocean for just weeks in order to travel from the Great Australian Bight to Wharton. "In the summer months, that's when the currents go from east to west," he said. "It probably would have been a few weeks; it could have even been a month before it actually got to Wharton Beach.

Once it got to the beach it could have stayed there and got buried in the sand, so it could have been there for 100 years."

Ms Brown is currently sending the letters to the families of Private Harley and Private Neville.

From https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/families-of-wwi-soldiers-set-to-be-reunited-with-a-century-old-letters-uncovered-on-wa-beach/ar-AA1PiErQ?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=69001e77b3604a84a59566570cfc1a86&ei=8