The Scottish commando during the landing on the beaches of Normandy had a very special soundtrack played by Bill the piper.
William Millin, aka Bill, was a Scottish soldier. He was the piper of Simon Fraser, XV Lord Lovat, commander of the 1st Special Service Brigade
Millin is best remembered for playing bagpipes on the water's edge while under fire during the D-Day landing. It has been a tradition to use pipers in battle since the days of the clans. However, the use of bagpipes in the British Army during World War II was limited to the rear lines.
Lord Lovat, however, ignored these regulations and ordered Millin, who was 21 at the time, to play at the forefront. When Private Millin replied citing the regulations, Lord Lovat replied, "Ah, but that's the British War Office. You and I are both Scots, and that doesn't apply". And so during the landing Piper Bill hugged the bagpipes. As his companions fell around him he played "Highland Laddie" "The Road to the Isles" and "All The Blue Bonnets Are Over The Border." Millin later spoke to some captured German snipers: " I did not get shot because the German military had somehow been stunned and amazed by my madness ".
Millin, who Lovat had named his personal piper during the commando training at Achnacarry, near Fort William in Scotland, was the only man on landing who wore a kilt - it was the same Cameron tartan his father had worn in the Flanders during World War I - and he was armed only with bagpipes and the sgian-dubh, or "black knife", tucked into the sock of his right leg.
His bagpipes are now kept at the National War Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle. The image of young Bill playing like a madman up and down the beach during the Normandy landings has become a symbol of the Allied revenge and Hitler's inevitable fall.
In the picture: Bill with his bagpipes, during the Normandy landings.
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