His family moved to Hayes in Middlesex when he was 13, when his father became the manager of a Scots Jams factory, and he was educated at the county school in Southall.

He was not keen to join the infantry, as the casualty rate was so high; instead, on his 18th birthday in 1918, Young signed up for the RFC at its recruiting centre in Shepherd's Bush.

During the Second World War he was working as the manager of a tannin extract company at Sandakan in North Borneo when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

His family escaped to Australia, but Young was captured after the Japanese took North Borneo in January 1942, and interned in a camp at Berhala Island near Sandakan.

[3] On the death of William Roberts on 30 April 2006, Young became the last surviving member of the Royal Flying Corps before it joined with the RNAS to become the RAF.