List of Famous people who born in 1917

Heinrich Ehrler was a German Luftwaffe military aviator and wing commander during World War II. As a fighter ace, he is credited with 208 enemy aircraft shot down in over 400 combat missions. The majority of his victories were claimed over the Eastern Front, with nine claims over the Western Front which included eight in the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter.

Paterson Clarence Hughes, DFC was an Australian fighter ace of World War II. Serving with the Royal Air Force (RAF), he was credited with as many as seventeen aerial victories during the Battle of Britain, before being killed in action on 7 September 1940. His tally made him the highest-scoring Australian of the battle, and among the three highest-scoring Australians of the war.

Colonel I Gusti Ngurah Rai was an Indonesian National Hero who commanded Indonesian forces in Bali against the Dutch during the Indonesian War of Independence. He was killed in the Battle of Margarana.

Leonid Nikitovich Khrushchev was the son of Nikita Khrushchev, former leader of the Soviet Union, and served as a fighter pilot in the Soviet Air Forces during the Second World War. He was shot down and killed in 1943, but the exact circumstances of his death remain unknown.

Lupe Sino was a Spanish actress.

Francis John Minton was an English painter, illustrator, stage designer and teacher. After studying in France, he became a teacher in London, and at the same time maintained a consistently large output of works. In addition to landscapes, portraits and other paintings, some of them on an unusually large scale, he built up a reputation as an illustrator of books.

Petar "Pero" Brzica was a Croatian mass murderer. Brzica became a member of the fascist Ustaše movement and committed his atrocities at the Jasenovac concentration camp during World War II.

Rolf Wenkhaus was a German child actor who is best remembered for his role of Emil Tischbein in the 1931 film Emil and the Detectives.

Robert Hampton "Hammy" Gray,, RCNVR was a Canadian naval officer, pilot, and recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC) during World War II, one of only two members of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm to have been thus decorated in that war. Gray is the last Canadian to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

Herbert Zimmermann was a popular German football commentator.