Heroes Call!!!

D-Day Piper Millin Dies at 87

The Times of London

As piper to a British army unit, Bill Millin was ordered to play "Blue Bonnets Over the Border" on his bagpipes as his brigade waded ashore on Sword Beach immediately behind the 3rd Division on the morning of D-Day, June 6, 1944, and thereafter battled its way inland.

Mr. Millin, who died Wednesday at age 87, continued to play Highland tunes as the brigade advanced inland under intense German infantry and sniper fire through the villages of Ouistreham and then Benouville en route to their objective.

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Associated Press

World War II piper Bill Millin posed at his home in Dawlish, England, in April 2004.

This was the relief of the airborne troops at the Pegasus bridge over the Caen Canal and the Ranville bridge over the River Orne. These had been captured in a remarkable glider-borne assault in the first half hour of D-Day.

But according to Mr. Millin, his unit's commander, Brigadier Simon Fraser, was somewhat economical with the truth when he greeted the defender's grateful commander with a nonchalant "Aye, we are very pleased to see you old boy. Sorry we are two-anda-half minutes late."

"We should have been there around about midday and it was now after one," Mr. Millin recalled.

Mr. Millin piped the landing craft carrying himself and his fellow commandos past the Isle of Wight to the cheers of thousands of troops and sailors on the decks of the other ships of the invasion force. By the time the invasion force was into the Channel proper, the seas had become far too rough for Millin to continue, and the troops went below and tried to catch some sleep below decks between bouts of seasickness in the heavy swells.

As the landing craft grounded off the Normandy beaches, Mr. Millin jumped into the water from his ramp, noting that the shock of the freezing cold water had made him completely forget his seasickness. He strode ashore through the surf continuing to play right up the beach. Not everyone in the unit approved of the musical accompaniment. Some cheered. Others yelled "mad bastard" at him — a sobriquet normally reserved for the commanding officer.

As Mr. Millin recalled, the speed of the brigade's advance tended to make him forget his fear. As he ran through the bagpipe repertoire the process seemed to gain an unearthly momentum of its own. When another officer told him to run, he heard himself saying calmly: "No, I won't be running sir. I will just play them as usual."

At the end of a long first day in France Mr. Millin finally found himself piping to a small party of French civilians. He had entered a clearing where a group of ragged and terrified farm workers crouched with a small girl with red hair and bare feet in their midst. After the terrified girl shrieked "Music, music, music!" at them Mr. Millin broke into "The Nut Brown Maid," until a further outbreak of mortar fire put an end to this impromptu entertainment, and the French workers fled for cover.

That night, Mr. Millin and his unit were billeted in an empty farmhouse at the end of an extraordinary day of fighting.

Mr. Millin did not, as is popularly supposed, play himself in the cameo role as the piper in the war film spectacular of 1962 "The Longest Day." Pipe Major Leslie de Laspee, official piper to the Queen Mother at the time, played on that occasion.

Over the past few decades Mr. Millin, who was born in Glasgow, had often returned to France to pay respect to his fallen comrades. French fundraisers have been trying to raise $125,000 to erect a statue of him at Sword Beach. His bagpipes, which were badly damaged by shrapnel a few days after D-Day were given a permanent home in the National War Museum of Scotland in 2001.

Comments

[GMA213]

Another good man gone. We owe these good men our liberty.

Requiem

UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850–1894

[Arrow]

Amen to GMA 213 post

May you rest in eternal peace Piper Bill Millin. Thank you for your outstanding example for those Warriors that came after you and your courage under fire.

[Samantha]

Blue Bonnets is a beautiful tune and I am getting goosebumps imagining it being played that morning.

[Nike Shox Turbo]

Nothing is easier than to deceive one's self. (Demothenes, Ancient Greek statesman)