Skip to main content

  • Preparations in Orange are well under way for War Chest Day tomorrow, with Wade Park hosting a myriad of activities including bullock riding and wrestling on horseback. The Leader anticipates that the people of Orange will donate more money than those in Parkes and Forbes, who raised £800 and £700 respectively.
  • The 1st Australian Wireless Signal Squadron is engaged at Daur on the west bank of the Tigris River about 140 kilometres north of Baghdad in Mesopotamia. The Squadron supports Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Maude’s British advance on the Turkish garrison of 4,500 men by supplying three radio stations and motorbike mounted despatch riders as guides.
  • Land is allocated to the Australian Destroyer Flotilla at Brindisi in Italy, for the cultivation of a ships’ vegetable garden. The flotilla is part of the Otranto Barrage, the Allied naval blockade of the Otranto Straits between Brindisi and Corfu on the Greek side of the Adriatic Sea.
  • The British government issues the Balfour Declaration, supporting the establishment of a of “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine
  • Corporal James Gresham becomes the first American soldier to be killed in action in WWI. The First American Soldiers Killed in Action