Aerial view of the ruined Chateau de Coucy, 1917. Image in public domain.
- Harold Ernest Whitmee dies of wounds in France
- Lieutenant Frank Hubert McNamara of the Australian Flying Corps No 1 Squadron rescues a downed comrade in Palestine and becomes the first Australian airman to win a Victoria Cross
- Retreating German soldiers blow up the historic ruins of Chateau de Coucy, built in the 1220s
- British forces on the Western Front advance towards Cambrai and St Quentin capturing a further 14 villages
- Alexandre Félix Joseph Ribot is appointed Prime Minister of France
- The German U-boat UC-66 torpedoes the British hospital ship Asturias near Bolt Head, Devon. The Asturias is en route to Southampton when she is torpedoed without warning, having just discharged 1,000 wounded men from the Western Front to Avonmouth. 31 people are killed; a further 11 go missing. In November 1916 the Asturias transported the then unknown Lieutenant JRR Tolkien, a victim of trench fever, from France to hospital in England. HMHS Asturias
