WW2 Old Flag champagne bottle finds home at Halifax's Army Museum

When the Second World War ended in 1945, Nova Scotia's Maj. Byron "Weston" Keating was one of the many Canadian soldiers handed a bottle of Old Flag champagne to celebrate.

But instead of drinking it, he tucked it away and took it back home with him to Nova Scotia, saving it to celebrate the birth of his first son. Four daughters later, the bottle of bubbly remained unopened. 

The 82-year-old bottle with a faded red stamp that reads "Reserved for Allied Armies" stayed with him until he entered Camp Hill Veterans' Hospital and passed away in 2006. 

The daughters then took it into their care. 

Daughter Nancy Keating said the family struggled for a long time about what to do with the bottle. It wasn't until she had a conversation with Ken Hynes, curator at Citadel Hill's Army Museum, that a solution was found.

"Nancy Keating asked me if the museum would be interested in having this artifact in our collection and I almost fell down the stairs, asking her to please donate the bottle," Hynes said.

The family was delighted to do just that. It now sits in the museum under glass beside a photo of the major and his wife Anne Louise Keating on their wedding day.

​"It's extremely emotional and I am very proud to have it here," Nancy Keating said in an interview. "And I also think about all of the people that are going to see it and it's a moment in time for us.

"It's a relief to have it where people will see it, rather than the back of a cupboard where it will sit and eventually someone will knock it over or the label will fade and it won't be looked after."

Major Keating had volunteered with the Canadian Army Pacific Force and was on his way across the ocean when Japan surrendered after nearly six years of war. 

Hynes said to have an unopened bottle of champagne from the moment in world history is "very rare."