PIPER Bill Millin is being remembered for his bravery in D-Day ahead of the 80th anniversary of his heroic actions. 

His family have launched a 10-day tribute to Bill’s efforts in the Second World War by playing the bagpipes daily in their gardens from 8am.

Son John and grandson Jacob will be performing in Bill’s memory in the run up to the anniversary. 

Bill, who was the personal piper to Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, landed on Sword Beach in Normandy.

After the war, Bill made Dawlish his home and his original bagpipes and his uniform are still in the possession of Dawlish Museum. 

On D-Day June 6 1944, kilted Bill landed at Sword Beach and played his pipes to encourage his comrades. 

Retired mental health nurse John, 69, said: ‘Lord Lovat’s speech to his commandos a few hours before boarding the landing craft taking them to Normandy ended with him telling them that ‘100 years from now’ their children’s children will look back and say they must have been giants. 

‘This is my way of saying thank you to the giant that was my dad, and all the many other thousands who gave their all.’

John will play the pipes at his home in Rampton, Notts, before Jacob, 41, does the same in Sheringham, Norfolk. 

They will be performing Road to the Isles and Highland Laddie, tunes that Bill played amid the D-Day carnage.

Bill was the only bagpiper in the Allied armada known as Operation Overlord. Lord Lovat, who led the Special Service Brigade at Sword Beach, later captured key target Pegasus Bridge, accompanied by Bill.

Bill, later recalled: ‘I started the pipes up, and marched up and down.’

He died in 2010 in Dawlish aged 87.

His actions on D-Day were portrayed in the 1962 film The Longest Day.

With the help of son John and the Dawlish Royal British Legion, a bronze life-size statue of Piper Bill was unveiled in his memory on June 8 2013 at Colleville-Montgomery, near Sword, in France