WAR-TIME MESSAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23107, 5 February 1937, Page 12

WAR-TIME MESSAGE

BOTTLE THROWN FROM TROOPSHIP FOUND ON AUCKLAND BEACH (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, Feb. 4. Worn by the continual rubbing of sand and sea for nearly 19 years, a soda water bottle which was thrown into the Tasman Sea fronrthe -transport Tahiti in 1918 by two machine gunners of the 40th Reinforcement was found on Tuesday afternoon partly buried in the sand on the beach at the south side of the entrance to the Waikato River. The story of the bottle, which was found behind a sand hummock by Mrs C. R. Brown, of Parnell, was fully told by the contents, which bore few signs of their long exposure in the open air. They were a small and dirty page from a loose leaf notebook and a torn envelope of a type used several years ago for official telegrams. The cork of the bottle had begun to decay, and in the bottom was a small quantity of black sand. On one side of the piece of paper following the message was written in a firm and still legible hand:—“July 12, 1918. H.M.N.Z.T. 107, t.s.s. Tahiti, 48 hours out from Wellington. New Zealand, steering due west. Greetings from the 40th Machine Gun Section, N.Z.E F. Corporal A. W. Brown (62863) and Private W. F. Brown (74777). Will be home some day.” Corporal Brown was the writer of the note, and on the other sid»2 of the page he had written, also in pencil: -“Home address: A. W. Brown, 51 Colenso street, Sumner, Christchurch, New Zealand; W. F. Brown, 5 Bury street, Gisborne, Poverty Bay, New Zealand. Send this to top address, please.—A, W. Brown.” The telegram envelope, which Was torn in several places, was addressed in faded pencil to Corporal A. W. Brown, 40th Specialists Machine Gun Section, S.S. Tahiti, It was datestamped July 10, 1918. The bottle, which must have drifted many miles before a severe storm drove it high up on the beach, was of a type known as “ split soda,” and bore the brand of a well-known Auckland firm of aerated water manufacturers. Nothing is known of the two machine gunners who used this bottle to send a last farewell message to their relatives, but the note is to be posted to the address given in accordance with the request made nearly 19 years ago. The cheerful promise, “Will be home some day,” was never kept in the case of many of the men who travelled on that voyage, for they i fell victims to the influenza epidemic, which was raging at the time, and the 40th Reinforcements never reached France.