2014 Christmas - Message in a bottle

Christmas Day 1916

On 25 December 1916, 13055 Private (later Lance Corporal) Thomas Charles Doe, sent Christmas wishes to his family in Melbourne in a handwritten note sealed inside a bottle he threw overboard from his troopship bound for war in Europe. His note read:

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

In 1968, a young married couple came across an old bottle containing an envelope with a note inside, washed up on Western Rock Beach in South Australia. 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, now written 52 years earlier, was still intact.   Unfortunately, the letter became misplaced for almost the next 40 years, until it was rediscovered in an old book when the Shipard’s moved house.  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 Mr Les Doe, son of Thomas Doe, living in Victoria.  Les very generously donated the original letter to the Australian War Memorial in 2008, where it found a new permanent home in our Private Records Collection.

Read More:

• Thomas Charles Doe First World War Embarkation Roll