'Always ... in my thoughts'

On 25 December 1916, Thomas Charles Doe sent Christmas wishes to his family in Melbourne in a handwritten note which he sealed inside a bottle and threw overboard as his troopship sailed for the war in Europe.

The note read: “Thrown overboard in the Great Australian Bight. Xmas Day 1916. Love and kisses to my loved ones hoping they are enjoying themselves. This is to show they are still, & always will be, in my thoughts till I return. T.C Doe.”

Doe was born in Croydon, England, in 1884, and enlisted in Melbourne in September 1916. He embarked for overseas service aboard HMAT Persic on 20 December 1916 and served as a driver in France.

He survived the war and returned to Australia in 1919, never knowing what had become of his message in the bottle.  He died in 1963 aged 79.

The message was found five years later, eventually becoming part of the Private Records Collection at the Australian War Memorial.

Jennie Norberry, a curator in the Research Centre at the Memorial, said the story of how Doe’s message came to the Memorial more than 90 years after it was written is a remarkable one.

“In 1968, a young married couple came across an old bottle containing an envelope with a note inside, which had washed up on Western Rock Beach in South Australia,” she said.

“The couple, Val and Malcolm ‘Spuddy’ Shipard, had to break the bottle to retrieve the envelope, which was so fragile that it fell apart almost immediately.”

The note inside, written 52 years earlier, was still intact. 

“Unfortunately, the letter was misplaced for almost the next 40 years, until it was rediscovered in an old book when the Shipard’s moved house,” Norberry said.

“Thanks to the excellent investigation skills of Spuddy’s niece, Bindi, and her husband, Colonel Shane Amor, the letter was reunited with the Doe family, when they were able to track down Thomas’s son, Les Doe, who was living in Victoria. 

“Les very generously donated the original letter to the Memorial in 2008, and it is now part of our Private Records Collection.

“More than 100 years after it was written, the message remains a poignant reminder of what it was like for those who went off to serve during the First World War.

“It’s a fascinating story and one that needs to be told.”