A pull off Frank Ward early on landed on the pavilion roof. Later he hit two fours and two sixes off successive balls from Ward in an over that went for 22 runs. The century won Bartlett the Lawrence trophy for the fastest hundred of the season and included six sixes and eleven fours. He scored 104 runs before lunch in just over an hour before slowing down. The fourth wicket partnership with James Langridge contributed 195 in 120 minutes – Bartlett 152, Langridge 39. The innings included six sixes and eighteen fours. Once again he fell to an extraordinary catch, this time by Sid Barnes low down at long on. With 1548 runs at 57.33, Bartlett finished fifth in the averages (behind Wally Hammond, Joe Hardstaff, Jr., Len Hutton and Eddie Paynter). "Wisden" elected him as a Cricketer of the Year in the 1939 edition. He hit 40 sixes in 1938, second only to Arthur Wellard. Immediately after his innings against Australia, when Arthur Fagg dropped out, Bartlett was added to the English team to tour South Africa that winter. He toured and scored 358 runs at an average of 51.14 in the first-class matches but did not play in any of the Tests. A year later, he was selected for the planned Indian tour under the captaincy of Jack Holmes, but the Second World War led to its cancellation. In the nostalgic piece about Bartlett that he wrote for "Cricket Heroes", Alan Ross remembered his batting style :  In the 57 minute hundred against the Australians, Bartlett scored just four in his first 14 minutes. In 1939, at Eastbourne against Worcestershire he scored 89 in 44 minutes. He was caught by Charles Palmer at deep extra cover off a hit that, like the one against Yorkshire in 1938, would have gone for six had he missed it. At the end of the season, he played in what was to be Hedley Verity's last match before he died in the Second World War. On a drying wicket Verity took 7 for 9, Bartlett being one of the victims. In the Second World War, Bartlett was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps. He transferred to the Royal West Kent Regiment in 1942, served in the Glider Pilot Regiment and later served as the second-in-command to Billy Griffith. He served at Normandy, Arnhem and in the Rhine crossings. During the Rhine campaign (Operation Varsity), his pilots included Welsh rugby union centre Bleddyn Williams, who had piloted in a cargo of medical and radio supplies.