WWI soldiers' bottle messages found in Australia

A family clearing trash on Wharton Beach near Esperance, Western Australia, found a Schweppes bottle on Oct. 9 containing 1916 pencil notes from Privates Malcolm Neville, 27, and William Harley, 37, en route aboard HMAT A70 Ballarat to reinforce the 48th Australian Infantry Battalion on the Western Front. The cheerful letters—addressed 'Somewhere at Sea' and 'Somewhere in the Bight'—survived legibly; Neville asked a finder to deliver his note to his mother, while Harley said the finder could keep his. Relatives were notified; Harley’s family was “stunned,” and Neville’s kin called the discovery “unbelievable,” mourning his death a year later.