D-Day piper Millin to receive statue

Bill Millin, the personal piper to Lord Lovat, who famously played on the beaches of Normandy during the first wave of the Allied Forces’ invasion on June 6, 1944, is to be celebrated in a life-size statue donated by the people of Colleville-Montgomery, France.

 

Now 86 and living in a nursing home in Devon, England, Millin has promised to attend the dedication ceremony in June 2010. Millin is a native of Glasgow.

 

His playing on the beach was at the command of the famously forthright Lord Lovat, Commander of the 1st Special Service Brigade, which was one of the first to land on Sword Beach in 1944. Lovat ordered Millin to play to rally the troops, in defiance of an order that pipers should not play since they would be left vulnerable.

 

To read a brief account of his experience in Millin’s own words, click here.