Book description
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.
