Bill Millin

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Landing on Sword Beach. Piper Bill Millin is in the foreground; Lord Lovat, on the right of the column, wades through the water.

Bill Millin, commonly known as Piper Bill, was personal piper to Lord Lovat, commander of 1 Special Service Brigade at D-Day.

Millin is most famous for being one of the few^{[citation needed]} pipers to play during a World War II battle. Pipers had traditionally led Scottish troops into battle^[1] however the death toll among pipers in World War I was so high that the practice was banned by the British high command. Lord Lovat, however, ignored these orders and Millin, aged 21, played "Hielan' Laddie" and "The Road to the Isles" as his comrades fell around him on Sword Beach^[2]. As German soldiers later attested, they did not target Millin because they believed him to be mad.^[3]^[4]

This action was portrayed in the 1962 film The Longest Day. It is a common misconception that Millin played himself; the actor was in fact Pipe Major Leslie de Laspee, the official piper to the Queen Mother in 1961. In an interview during the making of the film, Lord Lovat claimed that this was because "my old piper works in a bar in Glasgow now, I believe, and is too fat to play the part."^[5]^[6]