NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — It’s not clear that the message in a bottle that originated from Little Creek nearly 80 years ago and found in Florida after Hurricane Debby brought it ashore was sending out an SOS, but it is clear that the letter-writer did have something to say.
And Suzanne Flament-Smith, who was picking up debris in Safety Harbor in the aftermath of Hurricane Debby, found something that caught her eye.
“I see this bottle, and I’m like, ‘What?’ It was glass,” Flament-Smith said. “I picked it up, and I could see — you could see the letter in it, and you could see the writing.”
She took the bottle home, where she and her family tried to get a closer look.
“We uncorked it, and you could tell by the cork, you know, that it was very worn,” Flament-Smith said. “That cork … had been exposed.”
Inside the bottle, they found a stick, a shell casing, a metal ball, lots of sand, and then a letter written in a way her children didn’t recognize.
“My kids are like, ‘what kind of writing is that?’ I’m like, ‘it’s cursive,'” she said.
Fortunately, Flament-Smith could read some of the ancient script — and found a possible origin.
“It says it’s from 1945,” she said. “And I tried to read it as best I could, but you can tell it’s pretty worn. But I was able to make out the letterhead, which notes, “United States Navy Amphibious Training Base, Little Creek, Virginia.”
The letter appeared to have a handwritten date of 3/4/45, and it had plenty more, though some of it was difficult to decipher, given the fading of some of the handwriting over the past 79 years.
“It has, ‘Dear Lee,'” she said. “That’s pretty clear. On the bottom, it looks like it says, ‘Be all Navy, Your pal,’ maybe, ‘Chris.’ I’m not sure.”
In the letter, the writer mentions going back to school, in this case, radio school. Other sentences are harder to read.
“Some of it you can tell where it’s almost like it’s been exposed to the sun,” she said, “because it’s very worn.”
As to why the letter was placed in a bottle in the first place, how it survived a 79-year voyage from Hampton Roads to Florida, that will likely remain a mystery.
Flament-Smith just hopes its journey does not end there. She hopes a little help from Facebook will allow the letter to be delivered.
“I just would love to get this to a family member,” she said. “I think it would be so cool to show it, to share it with the family that either it’s to or who it’s from.”
