- International freighter SS Cumberland strikes a mine off the coast of Gabo Island in eastern Victoria. The mine was laid three days earlier by the German armed merchant cruiser Wolf. With water flooding into the forward section, the Cumberland limps to Gabo Island where she awaits repair. The vessel is one of 13 ships to strike mines laid by the Wolf, but the only civilian ship to be lost in Australian waters in WWI. Cumberland Shipwreck 1917
- Harold Cassidy of Anson Street sends news from “Somewhere in France”. He complains about the miserable weather and the quagmires of mud:
We have had to put as many as 18 horses on a waggon to pull it out of the mud, and the second last trip we did I had to go back 13 times and give other fellows a hand out of the mud. The mules were up to their bellies in mud all the time. During the trip I only had a slice of bread and some bully beef to eat for three days. We had to drink the water out of the shell holes with dead “Fritzs” lying all around.
- Arnold Caldwell writes to his mother in March Street “with the object of letting you know I am still in existence”. He continues:
The weather has been beautiful. I never saw such a sudden change from winter to summer. The past week has been quite hot, and we have discarded all our warm clothes, and I have come down to wearing only a singlet.
- Arabian forces guided by Captain Thomas Edward Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) surprise and capture the Turkish garrison at Aqaba on the Red Sea
- The Canadian House of Commons passes the Compulsory Military Service Bill, introducing conscription
- Crisis erupts in Germany as the Reichstag (German Parliament) demands reforms in domestic and foreign policy and a peace without annexations or indemnities
- German flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron”, sustains a serious head wound during combat over Wervicq in Belgium. Disorientated and temporarily blinded von Richthofen manages to ease his aircraft out of a spin and execute a forced landing in a field.
The Red Baron’s plane after a forced landing near Wervicq, Belgium, 6 July 1917. Image in public domain.
