By 3.30 p.m. the village of Bullecourt was reported clear of the enemy and a line of Lewis gun posts was established on its eastern fringe from Tower Reserve to the Hendecourt Road on the left. During the remainder of the day no material change in the situation occurred. Three several attempts were made by the leading companies to get into Gordon Reserve but the position was too strongly held, and, the trenches leading to it having been flattened out by shell fire, an advance by bombing was impracticable. Shortly after midday aerial reports were received that the enemy was assembling in Tank Avenue and Tank Support. All field guns and heavies at once turned on to this target and the projected counter-attack was promptly broken up. The activity of the enemy in this region continued till late at night, and it was evident that any attempt at further advance would be strenuously disputed.
After nightfall arrangements were made for one company of the Kensingtons to rush Gordon Reserve under cover of Stokes Mortar fire, but the situation remaining somewhat obscure the attempt was abandoned.
Very little progress was made anywhere this day. On the right the London Scottish gained Bullecourt Avenue and the 7th Middlesex on the left captured the factory on the Hendecourt Road. But all along the line the enemy's resistance was stiffening, evidently in view of the near approach of our positions to the junction of the Hindenburg line with the Drocourt-Quéant Switch.
Moreover the country was difficult for the attackers; it had been fought over many times and was utterly broken up, and the assaulting companies were all tired. In the circumstances it was a good day's work, and a day of peculiar satisfaction to the 4th London Regiment, which has a special claim to association with the village of Bullecourt. Here in 1917 the 2/4th Battalion occupied Gordon Reserve in the successful defence of Bullecourt against a heavy German attack after it had first fallen into British hands, and in August 1918 it fell to the lot of the 1/4th Battalion, after the village had been recaptured and again lost, to capture it for ever.
Casualties in officers this day were: Lieut. V. R. Oldrey and 2/Lieut. R. T. Stevenson, killed; 2/Lieuts. W. G. Hook, A. Holloway and A. F. Potter, wounded. 2/Lieut. E. H. Garner was killed on the night 27th/28th August, after having been ten days only with the Battalion. In the ranks the total casualties for the period 23rd to 31st August were 30 killed, 150 wounded and 12 missing. Having regard to the enormous importance of the successes achieved and the depth of the advances, these comparatively light figures are a matter for much congratulation. One shudders to think of what the losses would have been for equal results in the hard slogging of the Somme in 1916 or at Ypres in 1917.
Late at night on the 31st August the 56th Division handed over its positions to the 52nd and withdrew into Corps reserve, the 1/4th Londons reaching the Boyelles Reserve area at Boiry-Becquerelle at 7 a.m. on the 1st September, with a strength of 32 officers and 710 other ranks.
In view of the gallant share which the 1/4th Londons had borne in this splendid series of victories we may perhaps be permitted to quote an extract from an article on the subject of the 56th Division's achievements which appeared in The Times of the 16th September 1918: " ... This year it was one of the divisions which beat off the German attack towards Arras on March 28th when the enemy suffered one of the bloodiest defeats of the whole War; so that with this fighting and that at Cambrai to its credit it has probably killed as many Germans as any division in the British Army. Now to this proud record is to be added the splendid advance of which the Commander-in-Chief has told. The 56th Division has proved itself a great fighting division."
The Divisional record in the Battle of Bapaume 1918 may be summarised as advancing through 6 miles of very strongly fortified country in nine days; meeting and defeating three German divisions, and capturing 29 officers, 1047 other ranks, 3 guns, 210 machine-guns and over 50 trench mortars. Of this large booty the share of the 1/4th Londons amounted to 3 officers and 390 other ranks prisoners, 70 machine-guns and 10 trench mortars—a very fair proportion of the whole!
With this action the share of the Battalion in the great envelopment of the Somme line closes.
The following were decorated for services during the period 23rd-31st August: