Bill Millin, piper and soldier, sounds reveille for the troops at the commando training centre in the Scottish Highlands, leads the way for volunteer groups who sweat, run or march, and also takes part, in battledress and boots, in manoeuvres in the harsh Scottish climate.
On 6 June 1944, aged 22, he was chosen to "sound the charge" for the Franco-Scottish commandos — the first Allied troops to set foot on the sands of the Normandy beaches — armed with nothing but his great Highland bagpipe. He kept his diary, a precious day-by-day account of the life of the ordinary soldier, unaware of strategic considerations yet resolved to hold his place in the ranks.
A keen observer, brotherly and empathetic, francophile, no more — but no less — courageous than any other, piper Bill Millin had the great fortune to return unscathed from the three months of that campaign of constant danger. He brought back with him a close-up view of the life — and death — of his comrades in arms. By turns funny and tragic, sensitive, at times poetic, his account draws us into an intense time and place, as close as possible to the reality of an Allied soldier-musician in the Second World War.
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