World War I Message in a Bottle Found in Australia and Delivered to Families More Than a Century Later

Australian soldiers slipped the letters into a bottle, closed the cap, and pitched it overboard from a ship in the Pacific Ocean as World War I battlefields beckoned them both.

The bottle was a time capsule that would be delivered by fate—and it arrived for overjoyed ancestors last month—more than 100 years after the bottle first hit the water.

On October 9, Peter Brown and his daughter Felicity found the Schweppes-brand bottle resting just above the waterline at Wharton Beach on the south coast of Western Australia. The Brown family frequently walks the beach and helps to clear garbage, but this piece was much more treasure than trash.

Nestled inside the bottle were letters written by two Army privates, Malcolm Neville and William Harley, originally dated August 15,1916.

Back then, Ne