During research conducted on the coasts of Australia, a bottle containing a letter written during World War I was found. This was reported by Zamin.uz.
The letter was written on August 15, 1916, by 27-year-old Malcolm Neville and 37-year-old William Harley. At that time, they were sailors serving on the HMAT A70 Ballarat transport ship, which was carrying Australian military prisoners to Europe.
In the letter, the sailors wrote about their shared life and the hardships they experienced during the journey, asking their parents not to worry excessively about them. This historical find was accidentally discovered by the Braun family while cleaning the beach.
Deb Braun, a member of the family, emphasized that the bottle had been preserved under the sand for more than a century and was almost unaffected by water. “We often clean the beach, but such a unique find was an unexpected event for us.
It was a small but historically significant bottle,” said Deb Braun. Researchers are considering this letter as a “living witness of history.”
Because it reflects the human emotions, longing, and hopes of soldiers from that era. Malcolm Neville died in battles in 1917, while William Harley survived the war despite being wounded twice.
However, he passed away in 1934 in Adelaide due to cancer. His relatives linked this illness to the poisonous gas inhaled in the trenches during the war.
Historians view this find as an important source for studying the mental state of military sailors in the early 20th century. The letter is currently preserved at the Australian War History Museum.
