Mystery WWI Letter Catches the Attention of Online Sleuths – Who Is the Owner?

A mystery letter from 1918 has been discovered at Tyne Cot Cemetery, near West Flanders, Belgium. It’s subsequently become a social media sensation, with efforts being made to try and track down its owner(s)!

Tyne Cot Cemetery, in Flanders, Belgium. (Photo Credit: Geoff Moore / The Travel Trunk)

Written to a member of the “S. Webb” family, it was found in the cemetery and handed in on or about July 11, 2024, by a tourist named Britt-Marie (no surname released) to the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres. It’s likely that the individual who dropped the correspondence may have been on a battlefield tour in the region earlier that month.

Composed by Lt. C.E. Prebble to one of his soldier’s wives, it relayed that the man had gone missing (MIA) and he didn’t know if he was wounded or had been taken as a prisoner of war (POW). Written on May 9, 1918, it reads:

“It grieves me greatly to have to inform you that your husband Pte S Webb is reported missing from 24th April. I am very much afraid that I cannot give you any definite information as to what happened to him, it is possible that he was wounded and was taken prisoner.”

World War I-era letter found in Tyne Cot Cemetery, in Flanders, Belgium. (Photo provided by Geoff Moore / The Travel Trunk)

A search of the cemetery failed to come up with a name fitting the identification. As for Lt. Prebble, it turns out he died at Halloy-lès-Pernois on August 8, 1918 – just a few months after the letter was written. The regiment he and S. Webb were a part of fought in the Westhoek area of Flanders.

Since the story came to light, it’s started to generate a great deal of social media traction, with the hopes of a potential Belgium-style Hercule Poirot looking to find the family member who probably dropped the note back in July.

Tyne Cot Cemetery, in Flanders, Belgium. (Photo Credit: Geoff Moore / The Travel Trunk)

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The letter’s owner(s) is asked to get in touch with the In Flanders Fields Museum at kenniscentrum@ieper.be.

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Mystery WWI Letter Catches the Attention of Online Sleuths – Who Is the Owner?
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