Bear and Kingsbury
At the height of the battle for Isurava, the weight of enemy numbers placed the entire position in jeopardy after they broke through on the north-eastern perimeter and directly threatened battalion headquarters. A group volunteered to lead a counter-attack to try to block the hole in the defensive position. Among them were three of the 2/14 th‘s finest sons, Bruce Kingsbury, Lindsay ‘Teddy’ Bear and Alan Avery. With Teddy Bear firing the Bren gun, the patrol fought back. The firing was so intense, the barrel of the Bren gun glowed red and teddy could only hold it by its folding legs. Teddy began to wilt from loss of blood from his wounds and he handed the Bren to Bruce Kingsbury.
“There are turning points in battle - as in life – critical moments in which the course of events is frozen for an instant, waiting for someone bold enough to seize a fleeting chance at immortality. At that very moment, the Japanese were poised, ready to make a final triumphant charge through to battalion headquarters. It would have been the terminal blow to the 2/14 th. Bruce Kingsbury saw his chance. Firing from the hip, he charged straight at the stunned attackers. Alan Avery watched in awe: ‘He came forward with this Bren and he just mowed them down. He was an inspiration to everybody else around him. There were clumps of Japs here and there and he just mowed them down. He just went straight into them as if bullets didn’t mean anything. And we all got a bit of the action, you see. When we saw him - when you see a thing like that – you sort of follow the leader, don’t you?” (from The Spirit of Kokoda)
Kingsbury’s extraordinary charge sent the Japanese diving for the jungle. He personally cut down as many as 30 enemy and enabled his comrades to follow up and restore their defences.
Sadly, at the height of his glory, Bruce Kingsbury was killed by a single shot from a sniper. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the first ever won on Australian territory. Bruce’s Commanding Officer, Lt Colonel Phil Rhoden, believed it was the turning point in the campaign:
“Nobody knew its importance until later. But it gave us time to consider action, gave us options. If he hadn’t stopped them it would have been like water pouring through a hole in the dam wall. They would have come through and it would have been a domino effect. You can argue his action saved Australia because, at the time, the 25 th Brigade was still on the water and the 16 th Brigade was still in Australia. Without Kingsbury, the Japanese could have been waiting for them in Moresby when they arrived.”
