The objectives of the projected attack of the 27th August were the capture of Maricourt and the establishment of our line in the old British trenches of July 1916 on the eastern fringe of Maricourt Wood, east of the village. Exploitation of the success into the old German trenches as opportunity should allow was also arranged for. The leading battalion of the Brigade was the 3rd Londons, with the 2/4th Londons in close support and the 2/2nd Londons in reserve. Simultaneous attacks were to be made by the 3rd Australians in the direction of Vaux on the right and by the 12th Division towards Maltzhorn Farm on the left.
Early in the morning the 2/4th Battalion was assembled in artillery formation on the line consolidated the previous day, and twenty minutes after zero (4.55 a.m.) it followed the 3rd Londons towards Maricourt. The greater part of the advance was through the village itself and the Battalion soon got rather mixed up with the 3rd Londons in the course of mopping up the numerous dugouts in its ruins. The defence put up by the Germans, at least on the 2/4th Battalion's front, this day showed marked deterioration. It was sporadic and on the whole poor, and with comparatively little difficulty and remarkably small loss to itself, the Battalion gained its final objective east of the Wood, a message from Capt. Hetley to this effect being received in Battalion Headquarters at 7.30 a.m.
The inevitable breaking up of attack formations consequent on passing through a ruined village resulted in a good deal of disorganisation, and on arrival on the objective, which the 2/4th Battalion reached on the extreme left of the Brigade sector, no touch was found with either the 3rd Londons on the right or the 12th Division on the left. Hetley, however, who again assumed control on the spot, soon set this to rights, and leaving C.S.M. Bonser, D.C.M., to reorganise the platoons immediately available, sent C.S.M. Cowland to pick up the 12th Division on the left, while he himself pushed out to the right flank with a patrol. These efforts were entirely successful, and both the neighbouring battalions being found to be well up and the flanks thus secured, Hetley returned and established his headquarters in the railway cutting.
The rapidity of this advance and the completeness of its success leave one breathless after the weary and sanguinary struggles with which this ground had been hardly wrung from the enemy's grip in 1916. Maricourt Wood was full of German dugouts, and evidently these had not been quite completely dealt with during the advance, for later in the morning a couple of German gentlemen, feeling a desire to take the morning air, came quietly strolling down the hill from the Wood to Hetley's headquarters, where his unexpected presence caused them painful surprise.
During the morning C.S.M. Bonser was entrusted with the task of collecting isolated groups of men and with them filling up gaps and forming a support line in case of counter-attack. At this work he proved invaluable. Hetley writes: "He led party after party round dugouts in Maricourt clearing out Bosche, and was later perfectly splendid in organising the men and fetching up reinforcements, that is, rallying isolated parties in the town and Wood, all this under heavy if somewhat wild shell fire." Bonser received a bar to his D.C.M. for this day's work, and later, after the disbandment of the Battalion, when attached to the 2/2nd Londons gained a second bar on September 18th at Epéhy.
On our flanks the day was equally successful, Vaux falling to the Australians, and the high ground at Maltzhorn Farm passing into the 12th Division's hands. No counter-attack was delivered by the Bosche and we were left in undisputed possession of our gains which amounted to some 1700 yards of ground. Orders were issued during the day that the advance should be pressed on to Maurepas Station, but these were subsequently cancelled, as the enemy were found to be holding their old 1916 line in strength with three fresh divisions.
At 8 p.m. Major Crosbie made a reconnaissance of the line and organised the Battalion in two companies; A and B being placed under Capt. Hetley and C and D under 2/Lieut. Grimsdell, the Battalion's right flank resting on the point at which the railway crossed the front trench. Throughout the night the position was heavily shelled, but with very little loss to us.
In spite of the fatigue of the troops Army H.Q. was fixed in its determination to allow the Bosche no breathing space, and at 1 a.m. 28th August orders were received in the line that the attack was to be continued that day. The 3rd Londons were to lead the Brigade again, while the 2/2nd and 2/4th Londons were to remain in reserve in the old British front line. At 4.45 a.m. the attack was launched. The day resolved itself into a series of patrol encounters, in the course of which some very stubborn opposition was met with, notably in the Bois d'en Haut. By the evening the Divisional line had been established another 1000 yards further east, in front of the Bois d'en Haut and in touch on the left with the 12th Division, who had taken Hardecourt after stiff resistance, while the Australians had possessed themselves of Curlu.
That evening the Battalion was relieved, the 175th Brigade taking over the sector, and withdrew to reserve in a valley north of Bray-sur-Somme, a few hundred yards from the site of the old Citadel Camp, a spot well known to the Somme veterans of the 1/4th Battalion.
During the whole of these days in fact the 2/4th Battalion, though a little distance south of the Guillemont heights, had been crossing the tracks of the 1/4th Battalion in the earlier battles of this historic district, but under what extraordinarily different conditions! The painful steps of 1916, which gained perhaps a few hundred yards a week at appalling cost of life, amid the wretchedness of mud and rain, were now victorious strides which had carried our lines forward like an irresistible tide. Since the 2/4th Battalion had moved into the Happy Valley on the 24th August it had advanced some 8000 yards and already half the devastation of the old Somme battlefields was left behind.