He survived the war and later donated his bagpipes to the Dawlish Museum in Devon and another set of pipes to the Pegasus Memorial Museum in France. It was estimated that 4,400 Allied soldiers perished that day, and Millin was not one of them. ( Entomolo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons) After Lovat killed the sniper, he told him, “Right, piper, start the pipes again.” Statue of Bill Millin in Colleville-Montgomery, Calvados.
When he looked around, he saw that most people around him had fallen, even Lovat, who was on one knee. And he was indeed being listened to, as at one point in the middle of the battle, Lovat turned to him and commented, “You missed out three notes there, piper!”Īnd so the mad piper continued with his task, piping along even when he could see the snipers about 100 yards away from him. Millin, at that moment, was focusing on his bagpipes, knowing how critical of an observer Lovat was. As well as the pride we felt, it reminded us of home, and why we were fighting there for our lives and those of our loved ones.’ It gave us a great lift and increased our determination. It is hard to describe the impact it had. ‘I shall never forget hearing the skirl of Bill Millin’s pipes. One of his fellow Commandos, Tom Duncan, would later state in an interview what the sound of those pipes meant to him on the beaches. Many more would be moved by Millin’s music later that day. Although it didn’t seem much, his music uplifted and motivated the troops who could hear it. ( Paul Hermans, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)Īnd so the commandos marched across Pegasus Bridge to the sound of Millin’s bagpipes. To which Millim would later recount, “I was very pleased that they thought I was mad because everybody else seemed to be getting shot and wounded, and being a bagpiper probably saved me.” Bill Millin’s Bagpipes in the Mémorial Pegasus, Ranville, France. According to one of the Germans that was captured, later on, he claimed that they did not shoot him as they thought he was out of his mind, thus the legend of the “mad piper.” He began to play “Highland Laddie,” “The Road to the Isles,” and “All The Blue Bonnets Are Over The Border” as his comrades stormed and fell around him. He also had with him inside his kilt-hose on the right side the sgian-dubh or “black knife.” And, of course, his main weapon, his pipes. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply.” With that, Millin took his task and took up his pipes.įast forward to when they landed on Sword Beach, Millin was the one and only guy there who was wearing a kilt- the very same Cameron tartan kilt that his father had worn in Flanders during the first world war. Millin reminded Lord Lovat of the rules, to which he was answered with, “Ah, but that’s the English War Office. These poor pipers became easy targets and were killed instantly.
It was a lesson that they learned from the high number of casualties of World War I. Pipers were no longer allowed art the front of British army formations during World War II. This, however, was against the regulations. Then 32-year-old Fraser asked Millin to play his pipes once they stormed the Normandy beaches on D-Day. While in training, Millin was tasked to be the personal piper of none other but the heredity chief of the Clan Fraser and the 15th Lord Lovat, the eccentric and brilliant military commander Brigadier Simon Fraser. ( Spender (Lt), War Office official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons) 4 Commando, at Newhaven after returning from the raid.
Training Under Lovat Lt Col Simon Fraser, The Lord Lovat, CO of No. There, he played in the pipe bands of the Highland Light Infantry and the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders before finally volunteering as a commando and training with Simon Fraser, the 15th Lord Lovat along with other troops of French, Dutch, Belgian, Polish, Norwegian, and Czechoslovak at Achnacarry in the No.4 Commando. He was 12 when his interest in learning the bagpipes started, and by the time he turned 17, he joined the Territorial Army in Fort William, the area where his family moved. There, he attended a school in the Shettleston area. When he was three, they returned to Glasgow, where his father worked as a policeman. William Millin was born on July 14, 1922, in Saskatchewan, Canada, to a dad of Scottish origin. However, instead of a gun, he was holding his bagpipe and began his most dangerous performance with Hielan’ Laddie, all while men around him were hit and sank into the water. From Private Bill Millin’s perspective, he was there wading through the waist-deep icy cold water towards the shore alongside his fellow soldiers. This one, however, was meant to lift their spirits up amidst the chaos- the sound of bagpipes. On the shore, the foot soldiers also heard a different sound. On June 6, 1944, it was not just the sound of gunfire and rumble of explosions that began the largest seaborne invasion of Normandy.
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