Brian, Drew never said the Gurkhas were in NW Europe just that they also had Pipers. They served about everywhere else though. Please let's stick to Bagpipers on this thread.
Adelphi - don't worry about it - even I have been known to make a mistake - but my wife beats me hands down as she claims that she made the biggest mistake - now she wants time off for good behaviour......back to Pipers... It was the Pipes of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada who played the Lament when we buried our lads after the Battle of the Gothic Line at the old Canadian Cemetery at Riccione on 1st October ' 44 - with the band of the 2nd New Zealand Div playing the hymns. They were all re interred at the Coriano Ridge cemetery when that was opened in 1954.
From 51st Div History, during the Reichswald fighting Major Lindsay of 1st Gordons wrote, "The front platoon fanned out and we went forward in the moonlight, climbing over broken walls and piles of rubble interlaced with a honeycomb of trenches. I was afraid that some enthusiast in front might shoot at us, so I passed the word back to the two pipers in Company HQ to play the regimental march, and before long we heard the distant starin of Cock o' the North - we heard the pipers of the Camerons of Canada and knew we had not far to go."
Hi, I know you`ve mentioned Bill Millin so I`ve just added a few pictures to complement your comments. Regards Verrieres
From The Campaign In Burma by Frank Owen page 133. At Pinwe....the gunners poured in 3000 shells in half an hour. Not a hut was standing and hardly an enemy living when the Royal Scots Fusiliers entered the town on St Andrews Day (November 30th) , with their pipes skirling 'Cock o' the North' . An officer observer inquired "Where is Pinwe?" He was answered , "You're standing on it." See the photos in post #20 of them entering Pinwe.
Taking this thread to other conflicts, I even found some Yanks in Vietnam with the pipes. John Humphrey When: 1967 Where: 371st RR Co., An Khe, Viet Nam Activity: Who: Al Jensen playing bagpipes When: 1967 Where: 371st RR Co., An Khe, Viet Nam Activity: Who: Al Jensen
Australian Bagpipers at the Long Tan Memorial , Vietnam. Australia and the Vietnam War | Combat | Battle of Long Tan | The Battle http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=12237&stc=1&d=1231757487
Now listening to a Canadian bagpiper in Afghanistan. The Torch: "Afghanistan: Introducing ‘Task Force Kandahar’" Warrant Officer Colin Clansey, one of only two bagpipers in the current Canadian rotation in Kandahar and, he believes, the first piper deployed in that role to a war zone by Canada since World War II.
Photo by Staff Sergeant Jacob Caldwell, US Army PA, Task Force Bayonet English/anglais 01-17-06 Ramp Ceremony 009 17 January 2006 Kandahar Airfield Afghanistan Corporal Michael Meagher, a soldier from the Second Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment from Gagetown NB, is getting ready to play the bagpipes during the "ramp ceremony" which was held for Mr. Glyn Berry at Kandahar Airfield 01-17-06 Ramp Ceremony 009 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Interesting, I wonder if there's any pictures from the Falklands. I never saw any pipes in Iraq but there was a full brass band doing the rounds. Cheers Andy
I just read about Bill Milin in ATB's D-Day. It says he never played the pipes crossing Pegasus Bridge. Apparently he stopped around 500m short due to incoming Cheers Andy
Interesting, I wonder if there's any pictures from the Falklands. I never saw any pipes in Iraq but there was a full brass band doing the rounds. Cheers Andy I have seen photos of a Scots Guards piper in the Falkands War. I can't remember his name but I'm sure he wrote a tune called Crags of Tumbledown. EDIT : It was Pipe Major J. Riddell YouTube - Crags Of Tumbledown.wmv
Found this: The caption reads: A piper playing a lament as the bodies of servicemen are brought ashore from Sir Belvedere at Southampton.
Just watching a programme about Op Archery (Raid on Norway) and it said that a Major Mad Jack Churchill landed playing The March of the Cameron Men and was carrying a Broadsword. After a quick search here he is holding the sword on the far right !
I also see the Wikipedia entry on Mad Jack says, "In May 1940, Churchill and his unit, the Manchester Regiment, ambushed a German patrol near l'Epinette, France. Churchill gave the signal to attack by cutting down the enemy Feldwebel with his barbed arrows, becoming the only known British soldier to have felled an enemy with a longbow in the course of the war..." !!! They don't make 'em like that any more ! Talk of bagpipes reminds me of an occasion at TA Camp in 1980, on the Isle of Man. 71 Regiment RE (V) from Scotland shared a camp with an English TA unit...cannot recall who. The first morning, the English unit sound reveille with a single bugler wandering round our lines. The next morning we send our entire pipe band to their lines. Funnily enough, the bugler never came back...
Just to add to that.... I remember when I was on my Corporals Course at Blandford we had a Signals Gurhka on some other course in the next block. All day, all night (It felt like all the time) he practised playing his pipes and drove us all mad. After a few days of death by the pipes all hell broke loose when this Gurhka came running and screaming all sorts of broken English and Nepalese foul language out of his block as white as a ghost........Someone had filled his bagpipes with talcon powder. One of the funniest things I ever saw
Another one for Jeff of Pipers in Burma, looks like same one as in earlier photo from IWM. From book called THE WAR In Pictures Sixth Year. Published Odhams 1946. another party of Royal Scots Fusiliers crossing a swirling stream in the jungle with rifles , spades and bagpipes.
