This was my great uncle (technically cousin) Max Nagel. (Read to the end for the kicker) He had survived Nazi Germany and then a Jewish ghetto in Poland. One of 10 Polish-German teens sent to Australia. He lied about his age to enlist in the Australian Imperial Force, and within 48 days which shipped off to what is now Malaysia. On his 18th birthday he and about 80,000 others were captured in the Allied surrender of Singapore. He was sent aboard a notorious "hell ship" for slave labor in Japan. There he and his mates survived horrific conditions - between 25% and 30% of Allied troops died in Japanese captivity. Max survived 3 1/2 years there, and was on the island of Fukuoka not far from Nagasaki when the allies dropped that devastating nuclear bomb. On the way back to Australia he also survived a plane crash. And the kicker: because he had lied about his age to enlist, saying he was 20 and not his real age of 17, when he arrived back in Australia after having endured all o...