Leonard (Keyzor) Keysor

Keyzor caught Turkish bombs as though they were cricket balls and threw them back at the enemy.

[The Sydney Sun, Sydney, 13 October 1951, p 2]

Leonard Keysor was an English-born Jewish man of German descent who enlisted to serve in the Australian Army during World War I. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery during the Battle of Lone Pine in the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915.

Early life

Leonard Maurice Kyezor was born in Maida Vale, London, in 1885. His parents, Benjamin Kyezor and Julia Benjamin, had 5 children: Nellie, Marjorie (Madge), Doris, Stanley and Leonard. Leonard's father was a clock importer.

Leonard's Kyezor ancestors moved from Germany to Cambridge, England, in 1780 and set up a successful business as jewellers and watchmakers. His family changed their name to Keyzor after Leonard was born, although it's sometimes spelled Keyser in old records and Keysor in most contemporary records.

Leonard was described as a 'bit of a naughty boy' at boarding school in Brighton. He ignored academic studies. Described as 'athletic', he preferred sports activities, especially cricket and rowing. He left school at 15 to work as an apprentice clerk.

At 17, Leonard had saved enough money for an adventure in the Prairie region of Canada. He stayed there for 10 years. At first, he found work as a farm labourer, where he learned to ride and shoot. After a knee injury, he worked in a store. Unable to marry the girl he loved because her parents objected that he was Jewish, he fled heartbroken to Australia. His siblings Stanley, Madge and Doris had been living there since 1909.

When Britain declared war against Germany on 4 August 1914, Leonard had only been in Sydney for a few months. He was living with his sister, Madge, in Darlinghurst.

Enlistment

Leonard enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) at Randwick on 28 August 1914.

On his attestation form, he was described as a 27-year-old clerk, 5 feet 9½ inches (177 cm) tall, with a fair complexion and grey eyes. He listed his mother at Maida Vale as next of kin. Although a practising Liberal Jew, Leonard nominated 'CE' (Church of England) as his religion, possibly to avoid discrimination.

Leonard was assigned to H Company in the 1st Australian Infantry Battalion, AIF. After basic training in Sydney, the men embarked for the Middle East on 18 October 1914. Leonard probably thought he'd fight with the British forces in France. Instead, he disembarked with the 1st Battalion in Egypt, destined to fight first in Türkiye.

Leonard landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 with the 1st Battalion. He was promoted to Lance Corporal on 20 June.

During the Battle of Lone Pine in August, Leonard was wounded twice and told to get treatment. He refused, instead volunteering to help another company hurl bombs back at the Turks. He was reported to have kept up his bomb-throwing for 50 hours.

Private James Tallon DCM later recalled his experience in the trench with Leonard:

On August 6, I was in the same trench with Private Keysor, the V.C., and our job was to keep bombing the Turks. There were others in the trench as well, but Keysor was a great bomb-thrower, and he and [my friend] McShane and myself had a hot time of it. We were on the job almost continually for three days, until we were fairly dropping with the strain of it, and our arms ached like anything. McShane had a bomb in his hand and brought it to me to light the fuse, and just as I lit it the bomb exploded prematurely, killing poor old Mac, and leaving me minus part of my left arm and hand.

Citation for Victoria Cross

No. 958 Private Leonard Keysor, 1st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force.

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty at Lone Pine trenches in the Gallipoli Peninsula.

On 7th August, 1915, he was in a trench which was being heavily bombed by the enemy. He picked up two live bombs and threw them back at the enemy at great risk to his own life, and continued throwing bombs, although himself wounded, thereby saving a portion of the trench which it was most important to hold.

On 8th August at the same place, Private Keysor successfully bombed the enemy out of a position, from which a temporary mastery over his own trench had been obtained, and was again wounded. Although marked for hospital he declined to leave, and volunteered to throw bombs for another company which had lost its bomb throwers. He continued to bomb the enemy till the situation was relieved.

[London Gazette 15 October 1915]

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Leonard wrote to his sister describing the events at Lone Pine:

I expect that you have read that the 1st Battalion have covered themselves with glory. My word, it was a grand affair, but, unfortunately, there was a terrible lot of casualties. I had a slight cut on the mouth. I hear we are going to be relieved, and I think we deserve it. We have been five months without being relieved.

[Letter to Madge Keyzor, Leonard Keysor's sister, as quoted in The Hebrew Standard of Australasia, 22 October 1915, p 5]

Leonard was evacuated from Gallipoli to Egypt with enteric fever in December 1915. In January 1916, he travelled to the UK to receive his Victoria Cross from King George V at Buckingham Palace.

After being promoted to Sergeant on 1 December 1916, Leonard transferred to the 42nd Australian Infantry Battalion.

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From 1916 to 1918, Leonard served on the Western Front. He fought in the Battle of Pozières. Like many others on the muddy battlefields of France and Belgium, he was in and out of hospital. He was invalided to England with neuralgia (nerve pain) in July 1916 and broke his right arm in 1917.

From Europe, Leonard supported Australia's second conscription referendum. Newspapers in Melbourne and Sydney quoted a letter from him to his brother, saying:

I am disgusted at the want of reinforcements on this side. There are heaps of men who have been fighting now for over three years, and are badly in need of a rest, and still they go on for want of men to take their places. It is a fearful shame that there is no conscription in Australia.

[The Sydney Moring Herald, 5 December 1917, p 12]

Leonard was wounded on 28 March 1918 while fighting on the defensive Mericourt Sailly-Le-Sec line and evacuated. Back with his unit, he was again wounded on 26 May in a gas bombardment near Villers-Bretonneux. He was quite unwell and lost a lot of weight.

At 32, Leonard was repatriated home to Australia on 24 August 1918. With the rank of Lieutenant, Leonard had served 41 months with the AIF and was discharged in December.

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After the war

Leonard's war service left him with poor health, and he was discharged from the Army in December 1918.

Leonard returned to London to work in his family's clock-importing business. He married Gladys Benjamin on 8 July 1920, and they had a daughter, Joan, in 1921.

In 1920, not long after returning to London, Leonard's Maida Vale flat was broken into. The stolen items included Gladys' jewellery and his prized Victoria Cross medal. The thief later returned the medals with a letter of apology but regretted:

... that the burglar's financial position prevented the return of the rest of the property.

[The West Australian, 'A courteous burglar', 28 October 1920, p 7]

Leonard was cast as himself in a war film by English director and film producer George Berthold (G.B.) Samuelson. On the Hounslow set in 1927, a dummy bomb exploded in Leonard's face. He received minor burns and successfully sued Samuelson for 675 pounds in damages. The silent film, For Valour, was released in 1928.

In World War II, Leonard enlisted for service but was turned down on medical grounds. Instead, he and Gladys opened their home to Jewish refugees and helped other families during the London Blitz.

Later, Leonard was a member of the Anzac Club. He also took on commemorative speaking engagements and remembrance tasks, such as laying wreaths. He loved playing cards and cricket, reading and spending time with his family.

Leonard died from cancer on 12 October 1951, aged 65. He was cremated at Golders Green, London.

Commemoration

Leonard is the only Jewish Australian to have been awarded the Victoria Cross.

The RSL raised the money to buy Leonard's Victoria Cross medal when Leonard's granddaughter sold it at Sotherby's auction. Now it's on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

There's a Keysor Road in Pagewood, Sydney, named after Leonard.