10th January—2/Lieuts. S. F. G. Mears, E. M. Cuthbertson, S. C. Geering and G. C. Ewing.
Early in January Lieut. D. C. Cooke went to hospital and the medical officer, Lieut. Altounyan, M.C. (wounded), was replaced by Lieut. C. E. Dunaway, U.S. Army.
On the 21st January the 2/4th Londons finally left the Ypres area after nearly five months of hard work in it, and the 58th Division was transferred to the III Corps (Pulteney) in the Fifth Army which had now removed to the extreme south of the British lines.
In recognition of their good work in these actions, all "other ranks" of the Battalion were subsequently granted permission to wear a small grenade—similar to that worn as a cap badge, but smaller—on the corners of the tunic collar.
This closes the regiment's connection with the Ypres Salient, the scene of so much hardship and suffering, but at the same time of so much gallantry and devotion to duty. Ypres occupies a position in the estimation of the Empire which is challenged by no place in which British troops served in the War; and it must be for ever a source of pride to the regiment that it was privileged to take part in the second and third battles for its liberation from the Germans.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE 1/4TH BATTALION IN THE BATTLE OF CAMBRAI, 1917
The 30th August 1917 found the 1/4th Battalion much reduced in strength moving from Arques to Bapaume, to the great satisfaction of all ranks, for all had been expecting a return to the unhealthy conditions of the Ypres Salient. On detrainment at Bapaume an evening march was made to Beaulencourt, where quarters were allotted in a concentration camp. This march was not without interest as it was the Battalion's first introduction to the "devastated area," the appalling lifeless and ruined belt of country left behind him by the Bosche in his retirement from the Ancre-Scarpe salient to the Hindenburg line. Beaulencourt lies between Bapaume and Le Transloy, and is thus on the ridge which lay beyond the old Lesbœufs lines and which had proved the final check to the Battalion's advances in the Somme battles of 1916. From the village the Lesbœufs-Morval Ridge was visible, though of those two ill-fated villages no ruins were discernible. The whole area was a vast waste of rank vegetation which was rapidly covering the scars of the previous year's battles without healing them. Shell fire had contributed comparatively little to the desolation, but villages had been completely demolished and trees felled, and the British troops themselves provided the only relief to the awful silence of this strange land from which the life of the fields had vanished.
The Battalion was now attached to the IV Corps (Woollcombe), and the first few days were spent in very necessary reorganisation of its slender resources in personnel. The casualties of the Ypres action were not replaced by drafts, and each company was reduced to two platoons. That such work as was possible was done to good purpose was shown on the 4th September, when the Corps commander inspected the Battalion and expressed himself gratified at the completeness and good order of its clothing and equipment in view of its recent withdrawal from the Flanders battlefield. This day was the third anniversary of the Battalion's departure from England.