Dundee Geographers find historic airmail on Alpine glacier

Staff and students from the Dundee University Geography department made an unexpected discovery during recent fieldwork on the Miage glacier, Italy. Third-year student Freya Cowan stumbled across a bag of letters from an aeroplane that crashed on Mont Blanc in 1950.

Astonishingly, the letters survived 60 years in a very harsh environment. Over this time the glaciers had transported them over 3 kilometres, with a descent of over 2500 metres, to the spot where Freya found them - close to a weather station that the researchers, led by Dr Ben Brock, have set up to monitor conditions on the glacier.

The finds include several personal letters, as well as company invoices, banker's drafts and even a birthday card. Most seem to have been on their way from India to the United States, when the aeroplane tragically crashed on its way in to a stop-off in Geneva.

Dr. Tim Reid, a postdoctoral researcher on the trip, has since traced the daughter of a US pilot who wrote one of the letters, and he will forward the letter on to her. The researchers have also had interest from postal historians who would like to examine and conserve the letters, and the find was reported in the Dundee Courier on Saturday 10th July.