NSW: Police seek owner of historic letter

AAP General News (Australia)
12-09-2003
NSW: Police seek owner of historic letter

By Adam Joyce

SYDNEY, Dec 9 AAP - Police are trying to find the owner of a letter written by an Australian
World War II serviceman in 1945, telling his mother he would be home for Christmas.

The two-page letter, written in Borneo in August 1945, was among property sold at a
pub on the NSW central coast, which included unopened 1950s linen and cosmetics.

The items were handed to police at Woy Woy by a man who realised the letter's potential
sentimental value.

Sergeant John Haldane said the letter was difficult to read, and appeared to have been
written using a dip pen.

Its brown military envelope is addressed to a Mrs Anthis or Mrs Anthos of Church Street,
Parramatta.

The author, a Leading Aircraftsman, was a member of the 422 RAAF Group and used official
censorship paper with instructions about not referring to information of "value to the
enemy".

The serviceman said in the letter he was well and wrote about the "best news" of the war's end.

On the back of one page he said he would be home for Christmas.

Sgt Haldane said the letter had military post stamps and had been delivered.

The letter had surfaced somehow, and been sold in a pub along with 1950s Swiss linen and soaps.

But it was handed to police by a man who realised it could be significant to its owner.

AAP aj/sd/cbs/bwl

KEYWORD: LETTER

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