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D-Day: The military success that Winston Churchill feared would be a failure

2 June 2017

The battle that has now begun will grow constantly in scale and in intensity for many weeks to come and I shall not attempt to speculate upon its course.
Winston Churchill

On 6 June, 1944, was launched – Operation Overlord, better known as D-Day. When Prime Minister Winston Churchill , he was cautiously optimistic of its success.

Dundonian actor Brian Cox is starring as the iconic wartime leader in a . He revealed to Glenn Campbell that Churchill actually thought the invasion should not go ahead due to fear of .


D-Day numbers

Piping on the battlefield

Another man who had reservations about D-Day was legendary piper Bill Millin. But his were slightly different to those of Winston Churchill – he was asked by Lord Lovat to pipe commandos into battle on one of the French beaches.

before being quickly convinced when Lovat told him that, ‘This moment will go down in history’.

Unarmed, he played the pipes before they went on to fight their way to Pegasus Bridge.

The kilt was floating in front of me like a ballerina
Bill Millin

, ‘We ran over it with bullets singing round our ears, with Lord Lovat and Bill Millin in front’.

Bill Millin was also a commando who became Lord Lovat's personal piper after meeting the famous officer at Achnacarry near Fort William.

As well as the statue in Normandy, Millin’s actions were also immortalised in the 1962 film .

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