Keith William (Billy) Young was born in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1925. After joining the army in 1941 at the age of 15, he was sent to Malaya, only to become a prisoner of war when Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942. One of the youngest Australians to be taken prisoner in WW2, Billy spent the remainder of his teenaged years at the notorious Sandakan Camp in Borneo, and the even more notorious Outram Road Gaol in Singapore, where he was imprisoned after an escape attempt. He was 19 when he was released from captivity.

Sadly, Billy passed away in 2022. For many years he worked tirelessly to keep alive the story of Sandakan and the subsequent death marches, which took the lives of all but six of Sandakan's 2,500 POWs and, in 2004, was awarded an OAM in the Australia Day Honours for his efforts.