Bill Millin

2022

Re-colorization service for the company Memory Heritage Technology

Second World War

June 6, 1944

Bibliography

FLORENTIN Eddy, Opération Paddle, Paris : Perrin, 2006.

GIRAUD Robert, La Seconde Guerre mondiale, Paris : Editions Flammarion, 2008.

MEYER Eric (dir.), « Les batailles qui ont changé le monde » in Hors-série collection Géo Histoire, 2017, p.52-65.

MILLIN Bill, La cornemuse du D-Day, Paris : Broché, 1994.

Sources

Evans, J L (Capt), No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit — This is photograph B 5103 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 4700-29)

Bill Millin

Since September 1, 1939, war has ravaged the European continent. Free and democratic countries fall one after another under the tracks of the German army; Poland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, then finally, France, which was obliged to sign its capitulation on June 22, 1940. General de Gaulle and the men wishing to continue the fight, took refuge in England, the last great power to fight fiercely and with determination against Nazi Germany and its fascist allies, with the help of its empire and its Commonwealth allies. The war spread once again, with the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and its allies on June 22, 1941, bringing the USSR back to the side of the allies in the war. On December 7, 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan, the United States of America returned to war on the side of the allies, on December 11, 1941, Hitler declared war on the United States of America.

Junker Ju-87 Stuka au dessus de la Pologne, 1939

Junker Ju-87 Stuka over Poland, 1939

In 1943, despite Allied victories in Africa and Italy, as well as the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, pressure mounted for the Western Allies to open a second front in Europe. The latter are bogged down in the Italian campaign, on the Soviet side, the losses are accumulating at high speed, Stalin demands to lower the pressure. Roosevelt and Churchill promise to launch an operation during the year 1944. Normandy has been chosen as the landing place to open this second front; Close enough to England to carry out this operation and to support it with the air power of the United States and the British Empire. The German defenses are less well stocked there than in Pas-de-Calais or on the Atlantic coast. The terrain is clear enough with large sandy beaches for an amphibious landing. A strategic deep-water port is close to the landing site, Cherbourg.

Operation Neptune was the code name given to the invasion of the beaches and lands of Normandy by the Allied forces during the Second World War. This operation is part of Operation Overlord, the code name given to the invasion of Normandy and the battles that followed in this region, until the liberation of Paris. The operation scheduled for May 1944 was postponed to June 1944 due to lack of landing equipment, it was postponed for a few days due to bad weather conditions, to finally be launched on June 6, 1944. In total, 39 Allied divisions were engaged in the battle ; 22 American divisions, 12 British divisions, 3 Canadian divisions, 1 Polish division and 1 French division, for a total of more than one million men.

Among them was Bill Millin, a young boy of 21, born in Glasgow, Scotland on July 14, 1922, he was only 21 on the day of the landing. Bill served alongside his brothers-in-arms in Britain's 1st Special Service Brigade, commanded by Simon Fraser, better known as Lord Lovat, fifteenth and twenty-fifth chief of the Scottish clan of the Frasers. Bill landed with his unit and hundreds of other men on the beach at Colleville-Montgomery, in the British sector, code name "Sword". He walked the beach in the "Queen Red" sub-sector with his combat gear and bagpipes on June 6, 1944 at dawn.

Normandy invasion plan, Overlord, June 6 1944

Bill Millin is also known by the nickname "Piper Bill". A bagpiper, he became Lord Lovat's personal musician and was known to play regularly during rest periods in England. However, since World War I, the British have banned pipers from playing in the front line and in combat, by decree of the British War Office. This did not prevent Bill from playing Hielan' Laddie and The Road to the Isles on the landing beaches. Following the tradition of Scottish warfare, Lord Lovat commands him to play to encourage his men in the midst of chaos:

" You and I are Scots and this is an English decree, it does not concern us! "

Despite the chaos on the beaches, the heavy fire from the German machine guns would have stopped for a brief moment, the defenders stunned to see and hear a soldier playing in the middle of combat, according to the words of Corporal Maurice Chauvet, disembarking at the same time. Following their actions on the beach and after having secured the surroundings, the 1st Special Service Brigade had the mission of relieving the troops of the 6th British Airborne Division, having jumped during the night of June 5 to 6, 1944 on the bridges of the Orne and on the Canal de Caen. For this mission, the men are accompanied by Commander Phillipe Keiffer's 1st Marine Commando Battalion. The troops arrived at the rendezvous point on Pegasus Bridge at 1:02:30 p.m., Commander Lovat apologizing to Major Howard and his men for the 150-second delay.

Statue of Bill Millin at Sword Beach

Bill Millin survived the war, bequeathing his bagpipes to several D-Day museums. The bagpipe with which he played during the landing is on display at the Dawlish Museum in England. He died of cardiac arrest at the age of 88 on August 18, 2010 at Torbay Hospital in Torquay, Devon, England. Despite his disappearance, his memory is still alive, notably through the famous film The Longest Day, published in 1962. He is embodied there by the official bagpipe player of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Pipe major Leslie of Laspee. A memorial was erected in his honor and to all those who fought during the Normandy campaign in Colleville-Montgomery on June 8, 2013, thanks to the D-Day Piper Bill Millin association and at the initiative of Bigpipiers Of the World United International. The latter commemorate each year the memory of Bill Millin and all those who landed and fought in Normandy.