Cpl Thomas Eales (Lilydale), 21st Battalion: Is awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions on this day. His recommendation states –‘his daring and valuable reconnaissance work near Ecoust when he volunteered to go forward alone and locate an enemy machine gun which was then silenced by rifle fire with several casualties. He then led the advance and was the last man to leave the forward position when the action was broken off’.
Trp Arthur Rouget (Wandin), 13th Light Horse Regiment: From his diary (France) – ‘We heard an awful explosion one night that was followed by a lot of bricks falling. You would think that all the bricks that was ever made were all coming down at once. Of course we had to see what had happened and found that the Town Hall of Bapaume had been blown up with some of our own men in it, the first mine of its kind to explode on the Western Front.
My mate and I thought we were close enough as we were about one hundred yards from it but were quite sure about it the next day when one went up twenty yards away and left our horses standing just on the edge of the crater. Luckily for us most of the explosion went on in the opposite side to us. Unlike the Town Hall this one only got two victims, the other getting somewhere about thirty’.