Bottle of WWI letters from two soldiers found at Wharton Beach

A glass bottle containing handwritten letters from two Australian soldiers who sailed for the First World War washed ashore at Wharton Beach near Esperance on October 9, more than a century after the notes were penned. The Brown family discovered the bottle during a routine beach cleanup and, after drying the waterlogged papers, identified the letters as being written on August 15, 1916, by Privates Malcolm Alexander Neville and William Kirk Harley while aboard the troop ship HMAT A70 Ballarat.

Deb Brown said the bottle was found just above the waterline during a quad bike expedition to collect rubbish. Inside were pencil-written notes in legible condition. Neville, then 27, addressed one letter to his mother in Wilkawatt and signed off from "somewhere at sea," describing shipboard life as pleasant and joking that "the ship was heaving and rolling, but we are as happy as Larry." Military records show the Ballarat had left Adelaide on August 12, 1916 en route to reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on the Western Front. Neville was killed in action in France on April 11, 1917.

Harley, 37 at the time, wrote a short message to the finder expressing well wishes. He...