Today in 1944, D-Day: Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy to push the Nazis out of France during World War II.
It was the largest invasion force ever: there were hundreds of thousands of troops, tens of thousands of vehicles, over 100,000 tons of equipment… and at least one guy playing bagpipes.
He was Bill Millin of Shettleston, Glasgow, and he was part of the 1st Commando Brigade when the Allies launched Operation Overlord.
The commanding officer wanted a bagpiper to inspire and motivate the men as they stormed the beach.
Front-line pipers were officially off-limits, for obvious reasons, but he told Millin “that’s the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply.”
So Millin showed up on Sword Beach not with modern weaponry but with bagpipes, just like the Highlanders of old had carried and played into battle.
And he played time and time again, even as Millin’s unit took heavy, heavy fire on its way to rendezvous with other units.
Piper Bill once said “When you’re young, you do things you wouldn’t dream of doing when you’re older.” Truth.
He later learned how a guy walking slowly and playing the bagpipes, managed to survive when there were so many other casualties among the soldiers who were running and ducking and carrying actual weapons.
He said snipers who were firing on his unit that day told him later that they could have fired on him, but they thought he had gone mad.
He lived to be 88, worked as a psychiatric nurse for many years and returned to Normandy multiple times.
There’s a statue of the man known as “Piper Bill” in the area near Sword Beach, and for the unveiling in 2013, Millin’s son was there to pay the bagpipes.
But those were not the ones Millin had used during the historic invasion: those pipes took a direct hit in the grass four days after the operation began.
Today in Franklin, Indiana, it’s the Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival.
Fiber artisans and makers can get together, take workshops, and enjoy a Spin-In at the conclusion of the event.
Sounds like shear fun to me.
Bill Millin (The Economist via Archive.org)
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Photo by War Office official photographer, Evans, J L (Capt), via Imperial War Museums/Wikicommons
