- Messages
- 1,703
- Reactions
- 1,573
Remembered as the piper of DDday Millins, Lord Lovat's personal piper, was the only piper accompanying the first wave.
[t]he use of bagpipes was restricted to rear areas by the time of the Second World War by the British Army. Lovat, nevertheless, ignored these orders and ordered Millin, then aged 21, to play. When Private Millin demurred, citing the regulations, he recalled later, Lord Lovat replied: "Ah, but that's the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn't apply."
Millin states that he later talked to captured German snipers who claimed they did not shoot at him because they thought he had gone mad.
One tough guy. There is a bronze statue of him at Normandy.Millin, [...], was the only man during the landing who wore a kilt – it was the same Cameron tartan kilt his father had worn in Flanders during World War I – and he was armed only with his pipes.