The Story of Billy Young

by Anthony Hill

Billy Young was a boy of 15 when he joined the AIF in 1941. He was an orphan – hungry, broke, with nowhere to sleep – and the army offered him a feed, a blanket and five shillings a day in his pocket.

The trouble was, the army sent him off to Malaya where he became a POW when Singapore fell to the Japanese. From Changi, 'Billy the Kid' went on to spend the rest of his teenage years in some of the most barbaric Japanese prisons: the notorious labour camp at Sandakan (from which he escaped), and solitary confinement in the horrific Outram Road prison.

Billy survived by a combination of luck, larrikin humour and native cunning, learned as a market boy growing up in Sydney during the Depression. He has lasted into old age by virtue of his extraordinary spirit.

In this powerful account of one of the youngest-ever prisoners of war, award-winning author Anthony Hill takes us into the hearts and minds of the POWs, who refused to ever wholly submit to their captors.

Genres: Biography

432 pages, Paperback

First published July 25, 2012

About the author

Anthony Hill was born in Melbourne on 24 May, 1942. In a varied career he has been a newspaper and television reporter, political journalist, antique dealer, speech-writer for Australia's Governor-General, and now full-time author.

Reviews

[Walter Van Praag · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a wonderful read. Though I normally do not read books about war (WWII in this case), this book came my way and I was fully immersed on the first night.

Billy Young's story is written in an interesting way. It centers around the Japanese run Outram Road prison in Singapore where the teenage Billy Young is kept under atrocious conditions. From there the story reflects on his past and how he was enlisted and how he ended up there.

Born from a rebel father in Tasmania, brought up in Sydney slums, and at age 15 he went on a 1000km bicycle ride to Melbourne with his mate (he intended to cycle around Australia!). In Melbourne he joined the army by lying about his age and off he went to war.

Imagine a teenage kid landing with the military in Singapore, seeing his mates go to brothels and come back with disease, being attacked by the Japanese, made to work on an airstrip in Borneo... this is a wonderful read about a wonderful young man. A young man who to date is still alive and kicking i his 80s in Sydney.

Despite the gloomy setting it is not a tear jerker, despite the atrocities and the events covered, but do keep a box of tissues at hand! Do yourself a favour and find this book, hard to imagine anyone would not enjoy reading it.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding book which I thoroughly enjoyed and found hard to put down. If it had been a work of fiction I think I may have said ''oh really'' a couple of times, but the fact it is a real story and actually happened is mind boggling. It never ceases to amaze me what human beings are capable of doing to each other and this book is testimony to that. It is really well written and overall there is a feeling of sadness running through it although the positive, of course, is the enduring human spirit. It was also a bit of an ironic time to read it when our world is so caught up the current pandemic. This is nothing compared to what those poor soldiers went through.

[Ben Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harrowing and interesting. The POW's of the Japanese endured horiffic conditions and inspite of those conditions, there remained a sense of humour within the ranks of the prisoners.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant book!
Billy Young was a 15 year old street kid when he lied about his age to join the army thinking it would be a sweet deal, a few bob a day, a blanket and three square meals. He ended up being captured after the fall of Singapore and survived brutality and starvation at the hands of the Japanese as a POW.
This wonderful book threads together Billy's life before the war, the hard scrabble of surviving the depression, his father volunteering to fight in Spain and dying there leaving him essentially an orphan, and details his desperate struggle to survive Changi, Sandakan and Outram Road.
I really feel like we need to remember these sorts of stories in Australia today. The last of the WWII generation is dying off and what is recorded in books may be all we have now.
If you ever feel like your life is hard, read this book and be reminded how good you have it.

[Shreedevi Gurumurty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keith William "Billy" Young OAM (November 4, 1925-May,2022). His mother left and died when he was young, and his father fought and died in the Spanish civil war, so Billy boarded with the Jepsons for a bit and then lived with his paternal relatives. He was eventually orphaned, became a rebel by playing truant from school and spent time going around and doing odd jobs but then put his age up four years and enlisted in the army when WWII happened so that he could get decent food, shelter and income.Young was posted to the 3rd Reinforcements of the 29th Infantry Battalion and sent with the 8th Division to Malaya. A month after his 16th birthday, the Japanese stormed through Malaya to Singapore. Young became a casualty on February 12, 1942.He was among hundreds of other soldiers shipped to Borneo to build a Japanese airstrip at Sandakan in the Malaysian jungle.Billy spent his 17th birthday in the infamous Sandakan prisoner-of-war camp and much of the rest of the war in the notorious Outram Road jail.Only six Australians, of 1787 fellow countrymen and 641 Britons, survived the Sandakan camp, death march through mountainous jungle to Ranau, and the wretched destination itself.After the war Young wrote his story on an electric typewriter and expressed his experiences in poetry. He learned to draw scenes he remembered from his days of imprisonment. He then took to canvas and acrylic paints.Billy was always aware of how fortunate he was to have survived and played the cards he'd been dealt well.The Japanese used Outram Road Gaol in Singapore as a place of punishment for all those who broke their rules – prisoners of war, internees and local people.It was a place of starvation, torture and terror, a place of madness and, for many, death. Those who survived Outram Road displayed exceptional qualities of endurance, mental and emotional fortitude.

[Mark Jennar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank You Billy Young for sharing you horrific time as a POW. as a kid i would always ask my uncle ( the late Jimmy ( James Darlington) questions about the war. The reply was you don't want to know son, Uncle Jimmy was also my God Father. I didn't put the book down & especially when i started reading about uncle Jim. No wonder he didn't want to talk about it it makes me sad thinking of me as a kid asking him all the time. Great book by a man who survived to tell his story.....

[Rupert Grech · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing story that every Australian should read. A little clunky from too much detail in places, the last chapter makes up for that and more.