KEYSOR Leonard Maurice
RANK Lance Corporal
UNIT 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Division
DATE 7-8 August 1915
PLACE Lone Pine trenches, Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey
LEONARD KEYSOR was born on November 1895 at Maida Vale, London, son of Benjamin Keysor. The name was sometimes spelt Keyzor. Educated at Tonnleigh Castle, Ramsgate, he moved to Canada to settle after his schooling. Three months before the outbreak of war he travelled to Australia and found employment in Sydney as a clerk.
Keysor enlisted in the AIF on 18 August 1914 and was posted to the 1st Battalion, which was just then forming at Randwick. Keysor embarked with his unit on 18 October, trained in the Middle East and participated in the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915; he was appointed lance corporal on 20 June. It was at Lone Pine that Keysor won the first of seven Victoria Crosses awarded to Australians for that battle. The Lone Pine operation commenced just before sunset on 6 August 1915 and before darkness fell the 1st Brigade had established a line of defensive posts around Lone Pine. Soon after dark the Turks moved in reinforcements and made the first of a series of bombing attacks that were to continue for three days. On 7 August Keysor was in a trench which was being heavily bombed by the enemy. At great risk to himself he picked up two live Turkish bombs and threw them back at the enemy. Although wounded, he kept throwing bombs. The next day, at the same place, he bombed the enemy out of a position which made his trench vulnerable. He was again wounded. Although he was marked for hospital he stayed in the trenches and threw bombs for another company which had lost its bomb throwers. Keysor kept throwing both Turkish bombs and crude Australian bombs, manufactured on the beach, for fifty hours before he allowed himself to be evacuated for treatment. On 9 August the enemy finally abandoned their counter-attack.
After Lone Pine Keysor went to Britain suffering from enteric fever. He was decorated by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 15 January 1916. Keysor rejoined his battalion in France in March 1916 and participated in the fighting at Pozieres. In December 1916 he was promoted to sergeant and on 13 January 1917 he was appointed second lieutenant; he was promoted to lieutenant on 28 July. On 17 November 1916 he had transferred to the 42nd Battalion and had been twice wounded while serving with that unit, on 28 March 1918 in the Mericourt-Sailly-le-Sec line and in a gas bombardment near Villers-Bretonneux on 26 May. Discharged on medical grounds on 12 December, Keysor returned to his pre-war employment as a clerk but, in 1920, returned to London and there, on 21 July 1921, married Gladys Benjamin at the Hill Street synagogue. There was one daughter of the marriage. Because he was living in Britain, he was the only Australian Victoria Cross winner of the 1914-18 war to attend the first two reunions of Victoria Cross winners, held in 1920 and 1929.
Keysor was, ironically, injured in 1927 while attempting to re-enact his bombing feats for a film entitled For Valour. He again lived at Maida Vale, entered an importing business, and was on the list of reserve officers of the Australian Military Forces but was rejected for service in 1939 on medical grounds. Keysor died in London of cancer on 12 October 1951 and was cremated after a memorial service at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, St Johns Wood. In 1977 Keysor's Victoria Cross and other service medals (except his 1914-15 Star) were purchased at auction in London by the Returned Services League. They are now displayed in the Hall of Valour at the Australian War Memorial.
1st/19th BATTALION THE ROYAL NEW SOUTH WALES REGIMENT ASSOCIATION INC. P.O. Box 224 INGLE BURN NSW 1890 Tele: 0414 907 427
