"HOME SOME DAY."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1937, Page 3

"HOME SOME DAY."

A TROOPSHIP NOTE.

MACHINE GUNNER'S RETURN.

INCIDENT 19 TEARS AGO.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this dav

Two young machine gunners of the fortieth reinforcements, who were drawn together because they were the only men of their section who were not sadly seasick when the troopship Tahiti wallowed through a heavy storm in 1918, discussed the censorship problem and decided to use the time-honoured note in a bottle to convey a last cheerful word to their families. On Tuesday afternoon a Parnell resi- j dent found the soda water bottle, worn smooth and with the rotted cork half buried in the sand, 011 the south side of the entrance to the Waikato River. In the bottle, on a page from a loose-leaf notebook and a torn envelope of the tyj>e used years ago for official tele-1 grams, the note was written, ending,! "Will be home some day." Corporal Brown, the writer of the message, had endorsed the note 011 the reverse side, giving the address of both men. Strangely enough, the name of the finder of the message thrown over-board nearly 19 years ago by the two Browns was also Brown—Mrs. C. R. Brown— and she is going to carry out the request of the note and forward it to Sumner. A Prominent Citizen. The writer of the note is Mr. Alan W. Brown, assistant Crown prosecutor in Christchurch, and well known to a wide circle through his interest in amateur theatricals and in sport and through his work for several years as leader of Christchurch community singing. Mr. Brown recalled the circumstances of the writing and throwing overboard of the note immediately when lie was approached this morning, and was delighted to hear of the discovery of the message. The two Browns—they were not related —certainly came back, as they predicted, but many of the troops on board —and there were over a thousand of them—did not return, even though they did not see active service. Mr. Alan Brown's recollection of that trip, apart from the pleasing incident of the finding of the bottle, is a tragic one, for over 80 of the men on board died from influenza, and at one stage there were only a few dozen people 011 the crowded boat with strength to stand up.