After 24 hours in this post we were relieved and marched back to an encampment in tents on the outskirts of Bapaume. The weather was now fine and mild, it being spring and we rather enjoyed our stay in this camp and we were excellently fed and had two blankets apiece so that we had pretty well all that we required for our comfort. Every morning for the ten succeeding days we were fallen in and marched in full fighting gear to an open field where, in conjunction with the remainder of the 5th and 6th brigades we practised Brigade and Division in attack in preparation for an attack on the Hindenburg line which we knew was in the wind, and would come off in the near future.

One day also we went through a battalion trench bombing practice using live bombs and abandoned trenches around Bapaume for the purpose. Altogether, for 10 days we were kept hard at our training and did not have much time to spare, but what little time we did have to ourselves, we spent in visiting Bapaume. By this time, Bapaume was connected with the railway line to Albert and Decauville light railways and trench trams ran in all directions.

Shell dumps, Engineers dumps, Casualty Clearing stations and Tent encampments had sprung up like mushrooms in the neighbourhood. Bapaume was crowded with troops canteens, Y.M.C.A. huts and tents, Coffee stalls, and the streets were continually blocked with motor transport, horse transport and artillery, etc. so that it was a different Bapaume to the Bapaume we had entered a few weeks before. It was now used as a base which supplied all the troops in the neighbourhood with supplies and was a very important place. After 10 days spent in training, our battalion was moved up to Vaux in order to relieve the 23rd battalion who were taken to the training ground near Grevillers to practise the form of attack which our Division was shortly to make.

We were only here for a few hours which we spent in watching the Germans shelling Noreuil and the batteries in Dead Mans Gully behind Noreuil. The shelling was so heavy that it seemed impossible to work the guns, the Germans sending salvo after salvo of 5.9 right amongst the batteries for hours on end. At 6 pm the 23rd Battalion came back to Vaux and reoccupied the village, the 20th Battalion returning to the tents at Bapaume. That night I was made temporary corporal and stitched another stripe to my sleeve, my pay rising with the promotion to 10/- per day instead of 6/-. On the evening of May 2nd, our battalion moved up to the forward area and went first into reserves and next night into close reserve.