Book Review: The Story Of Billy Young

IT'S a miracle that Billy Young is still with us. The 86-year-old World War II veteran lives in Sydney, expressing his wartime experiences through paintings and poetry.

Billy Young

IT'S a miracle that Billy Young is still with us. The 86-year-old World War II veteran lives in Sydney, expressing his wartime experiences through paintings and poetry.

Anthony Hill, an author best known for 2002's Soldier Boy, felt a need to re-tell the story of the man who was one of Australia's youngest prisoners-of-war. This isn't Biggles nor a Battle comic: it's a harrowing recall of an under-age soldier's hell on earth.

Hill heard of the man nicknamed Bill the Kid through a chance encounter and was drawn to Young's story.

Young had previously self-published a memoir. Hill, with his crisp and evocative prose, relies on Young's own memory, fleshing out the tale and collating historical data to support it.

The story begins in 1941, with Young an orphan living in Sydney. Poverty drove him to enlist as a 15-year-old. Two years later, Singapore had fallen and Young was a prisoner of the Kempeitai, the Japanese equivalent of the Gestapo. It's a dark ride from the outset as young men on a truck bound for Outram Rd Prison, with grim humour, wonder aloud if they're really being driven to Luna Park.

Hill's narrative moves between shores as he recalls flashes of Young's pre-war Australia or his time in the trenches and juxtaposes it against the horror that unravels. Hill writes beautifully in the book's final pages and the story, brutal in parts as it is, should never be lost.

The Story Of Billy Young
Anthony Hill
Penguin, $29.99
VERDICT: Harrowing tale of a young soldier