- On June 6, 1944, D-Day soldier Bill Millin played the bagpipes to boost morale as Allied troops stormed beaches in Normandy, France, to liberate Nazi-occupied France.
- His commander ordered him to wade on the Normandy shores and play Scottish classics, even though England had banned bagpipers.
- Millin, who was dubbed the “Mad Piper,” later found out the Nazis did not shoot at him because they thought he was crazy.
- Visit INSIDER’s homepage for more stories.
On June 6, 1944, Canadian soldier Bill Millin became known as the “Mad Piper” when he serenated the Allies’ D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France with his bagpipes.
England’s War Office had officially banned bagpipers from the war’s front lines, saying they would attract enemy fire.
But Millin got a pass because of his Scottish heritage.
His commander Lord Lovat told Millin, according to The Independent: “Ah, but that’s the English War Office, Millin.”
"You and I are both Scottish so that doesn't apply," Lovat said.
Lovat then had Millin play Scottish classics like "Hielan' Laddie" in waist-high water to boost morale as the Allies charged on five Normandy beaches in the largest naval, air, and land operation in history.
Read more: 75 years since D-Day: Here's how the Allies began to reclaim Europe from the Nazis
D-Day would change the course of World War II, but fighting and raids on that day alone also cost the Allies some 4,400 casualties, the BBC reported. Thousands of French civilians died, and between 4,000 and 9,000 German troops are believed to have died, the BBC said.
Millin saw many of his comrades' bodies floating on the shore as he played his bagpipes to drown out the gunfire, he told The Independent in a previous interview.
"[Lovat] said I was to play and he would worry about the consequences later," Millin said.
As he waded up and down the shore, the piper was armed with nothing but his instrument and a kilt. He later found out he was spared by German soldiers because they thought he was crazy.
"I didn't notice I was being shot at. When you're young, you do things you wouldn't dream of doing when you're older," he said, according to The New York Times.
Millin said he felt bad seeing his injured comrades, though they cheered when they saw him. One of the commandos, Tom Duncan, told the Times he will never forget the sound of Millin's pipes.
"As well as the pride we felt, it reminded us of home, and why we were fighting there for our lives and those of our loved ones," Duncan said.
After the war, Millin played the bagpipes with a traveling theater company, and eventually trained to become a psychiatric nurse in the UK, the Times reported.
His D-Day contribution was immortilized in the 1962 film "The Longest Day."
He died in 2010 at the age of 88 in Devon, England.
