Hurricane Debby made landfall near Steinhatchee, Florida, on August 5 as a Category 1 cyclone. Flooding was reported from the Sunshine State to Pennsylvania and New York, in the days after the hurricane’s landfall.
TAMPA, Fla. – A stroll along a pathway in the Tampa metro area after Hurricane Debby led to an unexpected discovery when a local resident found trash and other debris scattered around after the tropical trouble. But it was a shiny glass object that caught the eye of the unsuspecting treasure finder.
“I kind of just started walking to kill two hours while my daughter had volleyball practice. And where the storm surge water had receded, there were just piles and piles of storm debris,” said Suzanne Flament-Smith.
The Tampa-area resident said she is no stranger to the walkway and usually tries to visit the area twice a week.
Because Flament-Smith spends so much time outdoors and hates to see the local landscape desecrated by garbage, she keeps trash bags and gloves in the trunk of her car in case she ever comes across an area in need of a quick cleanup.
Tracking Hurricane Debby.
(FOX Weather)
The Florida resident admits it might sound a bit odd, but it helped lead to the discovery of a lifetime.
“On Wednesday, I was on my third bag, filling it up, when I saw the bottle mixed in with all the storm debris along the bayfront. The cork was really worn on the outside, so I went ahead and put it in my car right away,” said Flament-Smith.
BOTTLE FULL OF MESSAGES WASHES ASHORE ON A FLORIDA BEACH
While at home, Flament-Smith said her family discovered that, in addition to the letter, the bottle contained bullet casings and what appeared to be a miniature cannonball.
The only way to successfully retrieve the letter from the bottle was to break it, but once they did, discovered that parts of the letter had faded, but there were still some distinguishable language and markings.
Florida resident finds WWII-era letter in a bottle scattered among Hurricane Debby debris
(Suzanne Flament-Smith / FOX Weather)
On the Navy letterhead dated March 4, 1945, a man named Chris addressed his friend who went by the name of Lee.
The letter had a cordial tone, suggesting the two friends had known each other for a while.
Chris mentioned he was going to attend radio school and had recently received correspondence from Lee, for which he was writing him back.
Given that the letter was written so late in the war, it is unclear if the two knew that hostilities would end in just a few months.
The letter was dated about two months before the end of World War II in Europe. Hostilities continued for several more months in the Pacific until Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945.
Flament-Smith believes that, given the condition of the bottle and the presence of sand with the letter, it was more likely released from a land-based facility rather than dropped from a ship into the open ocean.
“We are just trying to find out the story behind it. Who was Lee? What was the purpose of the letter? Was it someone that had passed on? Or was it someone he was trying to get a hold of on a ship?” Flament-Smith stated.
Florida resident finds WWII-era letter in a bottle scattered among Hurricane Debby debris
(Suzanne Flament-Smith / FOX Weather)
The Florida resident has a brother-in-law who was in the Air Force, and he has been trying to use his military connections to track down the original author.
From what the treasure finder has discovered, the amphibious training base in Little Creek, Virginia, where at least one of the men had a connection to, was not a large center, so she is hopeful that tracking down the sender or the sender’s family may not be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.
“My goal is to return it to someone connected to the letter and get it back to them and bring back a part of their history,” Flament-Smith stated.
WAR TROPHY FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON’S ARMY DISCOVERED AMIDE BRITISH SHIPWRECK
Finding a message in a bottle, it turns out, isn’t as rare as you might think.
In February 2023, a Northeast Florida man found messages in a bottle along a beach in Flagler County.
After examining its contents, the finder said he planned to throw the message back into the ocean, believing that is what the original senders would have wanted him to do.
As for the most recent find in West Florida, Flament-Smith said that if you happen to know of a Chris or Lee who would have been corresponding before the end of World War II and have some relation to a military training facility in southeast Virginia, she’d like to hear from you.
Click the link to get in touch with Flament-Smith. Make sure to include as much contact information as possible, so she can track down the original owners.
A Florida man found a bottle along a beach with messages inside.