The ‘Mad’ Bagpiper of D-Day

He marched fearlessly up and down the beach on June 6, 1944, playing as gunfire raged all around him

Piper Bill Millin playing for fellow soldiers in 1944 / Credit: Public domain via Imperial War Museum

Like great novelists, great war correspondents know that people make the story. One who never forgot it was Cornelius Ryan, the Dublin-born reporter and author of the classic account of the invasion of Normandy, The Longest Day: June 6, 1944 (Simon &…