70th Anniversary of D-Day

[Valmy]

On this date 70 years ago did the Quebecois of the Régiment de la Chaudière return to rescue their ancestral homeland from the sales Boches on the glorious shores of Juno Beach.  Some other nationalities were involved as well, including my wife's Grandfather.

You go Grandpa-in-law.

[Maladict]

 

[Syt]

My grandparents didn't participate in D-Day. One was busy getting killed in Russia, the other was busy driving around SS officers.

[Grey Fox]

:salute:

One grand pa was too old for service, the other was too young.

[Tamas]

My grandparents didn't participate in D-Day. One was busy getting killed in Russia, the other was busy driving around SS officers.

One of my grandfathers was busy being an aircraft spotter in Hungary (awesome soldier assignment, if you think about it, thank you lame radarless WW2 Hungary), the other was busy being a teenager, soon to be bossed around by various German and Soviet units at various parts in the county, as a civilian caught between frontlines.

[Warspite]

http://www.economist.com/node/16885894?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fpe%2Fed%2Fbagpiper

(from 2010, but appropriate for today)

Bill Millin, piper at the D-Day landings, died on August 17th, aged 88
Aug 26th 2010 | From the print edition

ANY reasonable observer might have thought Bill Millin was unarmed as he jumped off the landing ramp at Sword Beach, in Normandy, on June 6th 1944. Unlike his colleagues, the pale 21-year-old held no rifle in his hands. Of course, in full Highland rig as he was, he had his trusty skean dhu, his little dirk, tucked in his right sock. But that was soon under three feet of water as he waded ashore, a weary soldier still smelling his own vomit from a night in a close boat on a choppy sea, and whose kilt in the freezing water was floating prettily round him like a ballerina's skirt.

But Mr Millin was not unarmed; far from it. He held his pipes, high over his head at first to keep them from the wet (for while whisky was said to be good for the bag, salt water wasn't), then cradled in his arms to play. And bagpipes, by long tradition, counted as instruments of war. An English judge had said so after the Scots' great defeat at Culloden in 1746; a piper was a fighter like the rest, and his music was his weapon. The whining skirl of the pipes had struck dread into the Germans on the Somme, who had called the kilted pipers "Ladies from Hell". And it raised the hearts and minds of the home side, so much so that when Mr Millin played on June 5th, as the troops left for France past the Isle of Wight and he was standing on the bowsprit just about keeping his balance above the waves getting rougher, the wild cheers of the crowd drowned out the sound of his pipes even to himself.

His playing had been planned as part of the operation. On commando training near Fort William he had struck up a friendship with Lord Lovat, the officer in charge of the 1st Special Service Brigade. Not that they had much in common. Mr Millin was short, with a broad cheeky face, the son of a Glasgow policeman; his sharpest childhood memory was of being one of the "poor", sleeping on deck, on the family's return in 1925 from Canada to Scotland. Lovat was tall, lanky, outrageously handsome and romantic, with a castle towering above the river at Beauly, near Inverness. He had asked Mr Millin to be his personal piper: not a feudal but a military arrangement. The War Office in London now forbade pipers to play in battle, but Mr Millin and Lord Lovat, as Scots, plotted rebellion. In this "greatest invasion in history", Lovat wanted pipes to lead the way.

He was ordering now, as they waded up Sword Beach, in that drawly voice of his: "Give us a tune, piper." Mr Millin thought him a mad bastard. The man beside him, on the point of jumping off, had taken a bullet in the face and gone under. But there was Lovat, strolling through fire quite calmly in his aristocratic way, allegedly wearing a monogrammed white pullover under his jacket and carrying an ancient Winchester rifle, so if he was mad Mr Millin thought he might as well be ridiculous too, and struck up "Hielan' Laddie". Lovat approved it with a thumbs-up, and asked for "The Road to the Isles". Mr Millin inquired, half-joking, whether he should walk up and down in the traditional way of pipers. "Oh, yes. That would be lovely."

Three times therefore he walked up and down at the edge of the sea. He remembered the sand shaking under his feet from mortar fire and the dead bodies rolling in the surf, against his legs. For the rest of the day, whenever required, he played. He piped the advancing troops along the raised road by the Caen canal, seeing the flashes from the rifle of a sniper about 100 yards ahead, noticing only after a minute or so that everyone behind him had hit the deck in the dust. When Lovat had dispatched the sniper, he struck up again. He led the company down the main street of Bénouville playing "Blue Bonnets over the Border", refusing to run when the commander of 6 Commando urged him to; pipers walked as they played.

He took them across two bridges, one (later renamed the Pegasus Bridge) ringing and banging as shrapnel hit the metal sides, one merely with railings which bullets whistled through: "the longest bridge I ever piped across." Those two crossings marked their successful rendezvous with the troops who had preceded them. All the way, he learned later, German snipers had had him in their sights but, out of pity for this madman, had not fired. That was their story. Mr Millin himself knew he wasn't going to die. Piping was too enjoyable, as he had discovered in the Boys' Brigade band and all through his short army career. And piping protected him.

The Nut-Brown Maiden

The pipes themselves were less lucky, injured by shrapnel as he dived into a ditch. He could still play them, but four days later they took a direct hit on the chanter and the drone when he had laid them down in the grass, and that was that. The last tune they had piped on D-Day was "The Nut-Brown Maiden", played for a small red-haired French girl who, with her folks cowering behind her, had asked him for music as he passed their farm.

He gave the pipes later to the museum at the Pegasus Bridge, which he often revisited, and sometimes piped across, during his long and quiet post-war career as a mental nurse at Dawlish in Devon. On one such visit, in full Highland rig with his pipes in his arms, he was approached by a smartly dressed woman of a certain age, with faded red hair, who planted a joyous kiss of remembrance on his cheek.

[Zanza]

One of my grandfather's brothers fell in France (or at least "the West") in 1944, so I guess he could have been involved.

[Duque de Bragança]

Flanby delivered some banal, boring speeches along with a common barbarism among (wannabe) pedants, un faux imparfait du subjonctif.

[derspiess]

My granddad was fueling up bombers at Wright-Patt when all this was going on.  Never stepped foot outside the US.

[Caliga]

One of my grandfathers was a minister so escaped wartime service by being exempt, but the other was in the USAAF and started off as a radioman on B-24s.  By the time D-Day rolled around however he was doing some sort of radio work on the ground at RAF Sheffield so didn't participate.

My cousin's wife's grandfather however did land at Utah Beach.  He is still among the living.

[Grey Fox]

Flanby delivered some banal, boring speeches along with a common barbarism among (wannabe) pedants, un faux imparfait du subjonctif.

The Nazis lost, stop it.

[KRonn]

Those two crossings marked their successful rendezvous with the troops who had preceded them. All the way, he learned later, German snipers had had him in their sights but, out of pity for this madman, had not fired. That was their story. Mr Millin himself knew he wasn't going to die. Piping was too enjoyable, as he had discovered in the Boys' Brigade band and all through his short army career. And piping protected him.   

Cool story, especially about meeting that French girl, then a woman, later after the war during a visit to the memorials.

[KRonn]

My father and two of his brothers served in Europe in the artillery, combat infantry, and OSS working with Italian partisans since at least one uncle was pretty fluent in Italian. Other great uncles served in the pacific, army, navy and marines. Some of them saw a lot of combat. I was glad that they talked about their experiences even though some of the stuff they went through was extremely rugged. It was good to let their kids and families know, IMO.

[derspiess]

One of my grandfathers was a minister so escaped wartime service by being exempt, but the other was in the USAAF and started off as a radioman on B-24s.  By the time D-Day rolled around however he was doing some sort of radio work on the ground at RAF Sheffield so didn't participate.

My granddad had some cool WWII-related stories to tell but it was all second-hand or home front stuff.  When I joined Odd (should be "Old") Fellows in the early 90s we had quite a few WWII vets in the lodge and had all sorts of cool stories to tell.  I think three of them were fighter pilots (two Navy, one USAAF). 

The most interesting stories were from a guy who was an Army  field artillery sergeant (forget what unit) and he was involved in a lot of the heavy fighting in Western Europe 1944-45.  He said he saw a few "impressive" tank battles.

My cousin's wife's grandfather however did land at Utah Beach.  He is still among the living.

Sad that we're losing so many.  What makes me feel old is that I remember when there were still quite a few WWI veterans.

[The Brain]

My paternal grandfather was too old to be in the military in 1944. His youngest brother was an officer in the Finnish army, so he was fighting the Russian hordes at the time.

My maternal grandfather was an officer in the Swedish army.