Florida woman finds WWII-era message in a bottle while cleaning up storm debris

10 Tampa Bay
10 Tampa Bay
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Publicado 2024-08-08
In communities like Safety Harbor, storm surge from Hurricane Debby washed debris and litter ashore. Among that trash, a local woman found what could be a piece of history nearly 80 years old.

Suzanne Flament-Smith says she was walking on Bayshore Boulevard on Wednesday when she noticed just how much trash there was.

“There was so much plastic. I'm like, Okay, this is driving me crazy,” Flament-Smith said. “I usually keep a trash bag and gloves in my car.”

She jokes, “I decided to make myself useful.”

“On my third bag, as I was filling it up, I noticed a glass bottle, and you could see the writing, the note and the scripture, I was like, oh my goodness, I think I just found a message in a bottle,” she explained.

Not any ordinary litter, she kept it safe and took it home to crack open with her family.

“There were contents in the bottle, there was sand, a few shells, a bullet casing, and like a mini cannon ball,” Flament-Smith explained.

But the real prize was the note inside, cursive ink etched on an old piece of paper, most of the words faded by the sun and time.

“Dear Lee, received your letter yesterday was glad to hear from you,” Suzanne read.

What she can make out seems like a message from someone named Chris to a friend named Lee.

“I’m going to school again, radio school,” it reads.

What’s unmistakable is the date, “3/4/45” etched next to a U.S. Navy letterhead from the Amphibious Training Base in Little Creek, Virginia.
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