During a study on the Australian coast, a bottle containing a soldier's letter, written during the First World War, was discovered.
The letter dated August 15, 1916, was written by 27-year-old Malcolm Neville and 37-year-old William Harley. They served on the HMAT A70 Ballarat transport ship, which was then transporting Australian prisoners of war to Europe.
In the letter, the sailors wrote about their life together, their experiences during the journey, and asked their parents not to worry too much about them.
The discovery was accidentally discovered by the Brown family while clearing the beach. According to Deb Brown, a member of the family, the glass has been under the sand for over a century and has been virtually untouched by water.
"We clean up the beach often, but such a discovery came out unexpectedly. "It was a small but historically significant bottle," said Deb Brown.
Researchers call the letter "a living witness of history." Because the inscriptions reflect the human feelings, longing, and hopes of the soldiers of that time.
Neville was killed in battles in 1917, and Harley survived the war despite being wounded twice. However, he died of cancer in Adelaide in 1934. His relatives linked the illness to "poisonous gas ingested in trenches during the war."
Historians consider this finding an important source for understanding the mental state of naval sailors at the beginning of the 20th century. The letter is currently kept in the Australian Museum of Military History.
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