On Bill Millin - D-Day bagpiper, June 6, 1944

William “Bill” Millin is remembered for playing bagpipes during the D-Day landing in Normandy. During the war, British Army regulations restricted bagpipes to rear areas. Bill’s commander, Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, Commander of 1 Special Service Brigade, ordered Bill to play during the landing. When Bill mentioned regulations, he recalled Lovat saying, “Ah, but that’s the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply.” Bill played "Hielan' Laddie" and "The Road to the Isles" as his comrades fell around him on Sword Beach. Millin recalled later that he’d spoken with captured German snipers who claimed they did not shoot at him because they thought he was crazy. Long remembered and honored, Bill passed away in August of 2010.

Thanks to all the thousands of servicemen who have sacrifice! - John B

On the Scarlet and the Black, and Bagpipes in Rome, June 4, 1944

When we think of World War II, many different areas of the conflict come to mind. Many of us have parents or grandparents who served in the Pacific, or Europe or the Africa campaigns. Some family stories are legend (wait for it) …dary and are shared generation to generation. Say the words June 1944 to a WWII veteran or history buff and the first thought will probably be D-Day, June 6, 1944. Yet a scant two days earlier combined British, French and US forces liberated Rome, Italy on June 4. In the S.F. Bay Area, we have a rich heritage of patriots who served or currently serve in the armed service. Bagpipes, in both British and US regiments have been, and are, part of that heritage.

Summer, for me, means more time to read. I’m not sure why exactly. Maybe it was the years of growing up in a small town where kids went to the library for summer reading clubs. Whatever the reason, I seem to find more time to read during the summer months. This past week I finished reading a book: The Scarlet and the Black: The True Story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, Hero of the Vatican Underground,  by J.P. Gallagher. It chronicles a great story of the selfless sacrifices made to save and hide Italian Jews, downed Allied airmen and escaped Allied POWs in the Vatican and surrounding areas of Rome during WWII. The story revolves around Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish priest working in the Vatican under Pope Pius XII and O’Flaherty’s team responsible for saving some 6500 men, women and children from under the noses of the Nazis and Italian Fascists. The book was a delightful read about a marvelous Christian who reaches out to hide and care for and protect those opposing the Axis. Then interestingly, he reaches out to one Nazi with the love of Christ who were captured after liberation of Rome, put on trial and sentenced to prison, specifically Colonel Kappler, the Monsignor’s wartime “archenemy.” After the war, Kappler had only one visitor, O’Flaherty, who visited him each month. The love of Christ must have been present and through their conversations as Kappler became a Catholic, being baptized by O’Flaherty in March, 1959.

But what about the bagpipes? The passage that prompted my comments above came near the end of the book:

At 7:15P.M., on Sunday, June 4, the head of the American Eighty-eighth Division entered the Piazza Venezia in the heart of Rome. Across the Tiber the sound of the pipes reached the Vatican. Pope Pius heard the skirl through the wide open windows of his study.

Looking on the web I found references to bagpipes and a news reel of the Liberation of Rome on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc9iCEZeb2M

Note: Hollywood found out about the Scarlet and the Black and made a movie in 1983 starring Gregory Peck as O’Flaherty.