- Orange Municipal Council announces that a monument to the district’s war dead is to be erected. Orange Municipal Monument
All who went forward voluntarily to do their duty in the cause of liberty have, by their valor and patriotism, made glorious history for their country, but it is the heroic dead who are most to be commemorated. Their graves are in a foreign land, far from home and kindred, but their memory will be for ever with their fellow countrymen to be cherished in the town they called their own. It is the duty of the living to ensure that these men shall be duly honored down through generations to follow.
- Private Leslie Charles Lemon of Moulder Street says that the French winter is the worst in 30 years. [We are] “up to our eyes in mud” and “the bread was frozen and had to be sawn off in slices with a huge saw”. To make matters worse, he recently returned from the front line to find that all his belongings had been destroyed by fire. Soldiers’ Letters – Dug-out on Fire
- The Orange Citizens’ Committee meets at the Town Hall to discuss arrangements for Red Triangle Day on 31 May. This day is a fundraiser for the YMCA. Red Triangle Day
- Nurse Mary Ellen Aloysius (‘Mollie’) Arthur is serving at No 5 Casualty Clearing Station in France, less than one mile from the trenches, where she is subjected to “incessant shellfire” and “harrowing sights among the wounded”. From the Front
- Australian authorities propose that that the Australian soldiers’ graves abroad be made from Australian stone and decorated with Australian native plants. Soldiers’ Graves
- Charles Joseph Cashmere of Byng Street sends news from The Land of Rain
- Twenty-one Gotha G.IV bombers head to London to conduct the first German daylight aeroplane raid but are diverted due to cloud cover. They head towards the south-east coast and attack Kent, Folkestone and the Shorncliffe Army Camp, killing 95 people and injuring 195. Seventy-four British aircraft counter attack but manage to down just one Gotha. 100 years on: Special service to remember the 81 civilians killed in First World War bombing raid on Tontine Street, Folkestone in 1917
A German Gotha G.IV bomber. Image in public domain.
