Bill Millin Reenactor

[Bruce Scott]

Hi jock gray,
I was just scratching around looking for a decent pic and I stumbled onto this site:
http://mpmuseum.org/postboots.html
Happy New Year!
BS

[jock gray]

Thanks for the info.
Ours in the British army were wool with the same coloured tape...we were useing boots ankle BMS, they had eight eyelets and a smooth stitched toe cap...the rest of the boot was dimpled leather, which we would smooth useing a candle and a spoon.
We would then "BULL" the boots with a mixture of beeswax, polish & spit with lots of elbow Greace.
Hence the term spit and polish.....to a mirror Finnish.

[Mike_Oettle]

Karl, I will leave it to the experts to nit-pick about the details of your kit, but I like your intention and I think you look pretty good in it.
Looking at those pictures of puttees, I am grateful that I did not have to wear them. Canvas anklets with brass buckles were bad enough (although they did look pretty smart when worn whitened, with the kilt!).
Now we just need your Lord Lovat re-enactor to say: “Millin, Black Bear!”
Regards,
Mike

[OC Richard]

The interesting thing about Mr. Millin is that he was a Commando... not an official bagpiper... his uniform is an interesting combination of standard items and personal things.

I was suspecting something like that. His specific dress on D-Day then would be a nonstandard thing, and could only be based on photographs made that day, if one were to be strictly accurate (which I say because memory can be faulty, and relics said to be worn by a particular person on a particular day cannot be proven to be such, but may have been acquired later, or owned but not worn, etc). So it's a very difficult task for the re-enactor!

So, if he were not a regimental piper, would he have worn the piper's trade badge? Perhaps he sewed them on his jacket on his own authority? In any case actual regimental pipers wore the British khaki (US olive drab) trade badges on Service Dress and Battledress, not the gold bullion-on-Archer green ones which would have been worn with Full Dress (officially retired, by the way, in 1914). But who knows? He might have got a pair of Full Dress pipers' trade badges somewhere and sewed them on. Anyhow the khaki Service Dress pipers' trade badges are still worn in the Army and are widely available.

The sporran, I feel, is civilian. (EDIT: the sporran displayed appears to be a modified army one.) Is there any photographic evidence that he wore that sporran on D-Day? He could have got it post-war. The closest issue MOD sporran was the one I posted a pic of.

The MOD issue hose had plain ribbed cuffs like the ones worn by Pipe Major John MacLellan pictured above. Civilian kilt hose with diamond pattern cuffs weren't ever worn, AFAIK, in the Army. The colour was usually British khaki (US olive drab) but Black Watch officers and senior NCOs seem to have worn light khaki (beige) ones, and officers of at least one Highland regiment seemed to have worn Lovat ones, in WWII. What Price Glory sells reproductions of the typical WWI/WWII Highland regiment khaki hose. But as you say his dress was personal, not issue, so he might well have worn civilian hose such as the ones you're wearing there.

The plain worsted scarlet flashes are still worn in the Army and are widely available.

Here's some of the variety seen in piper's dress in WWII. Note various colours of puttees, various hose, the usual lack of sporrans, etc



pipers in the war zone 1944



taken post-war, but showing the WWII style dress of the Black Watch pipers (except for the 1947 pattern Battle Dress jackets). Note the Pipe Major's lighter-coloured hose and puttees, and the typical Black Watch thing of having light-coloured binding staps on their dark puttees



here's a variety of regimental pipers' dress in the immediate post-war period (note the 1947 pattern Battle Dress jackets with open lapels)

[Kilted Karl]

Thanks OC Richard!

here is a photograph of Mr. Millin showing the badge being worn on the "wrong" arm http://nfs.stvfiles.com/imagebase/18...ps-in-1944.jpg

Perhaps, Mr. Richard, you could hazard a guess as to whether that is the "dress" version or the "Khaki" one?

Here is a picture of the sporran Mr. Millin wore on D-Day. It now resides with his kilt in the Dawalish Museum.



As you can see, it is pebbled leather (more easily seen in other photos) it has a button instead of a stud.

According to John Millin (his son) Mr. Millin wore "his own" hose, but whether that means army ones that he had or civilian ones, I don't know. I will most likely just have to get a pair of the Khaki ones.

Thank you all for your encouragement and advice! I will post more pictures when I finish accumulating all the webbing.

Sincerely,

:ootd: Karl

[OC Richard]

Here's a good photo showing the Pipe Major badges on the modern No1 Dress jacket, but the badges worn during WWII on Battle Dress looked pretty much the same. The design is done in offwhite thread, with details picked out in copper-brown thread, on a khaki backing.



Thanks for the closeup pic of that sporran. What it looks like to me is a military sporran with ordinary stud closure, to which somebody later has added a big fat button, which appears to be too big to go through the hole.

Here is that same sporran as originally made and issued, lacking the 'aftermarket' button of course



BTW the belt buckle seen there is a modern chrome one (made within the last 10 years I'm quite sure) and couldn't possibly be from the WWII period. Here's the buckle, made in you-know-where

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tartanista-M...item257d229d95

So, that display seems to be a jumble and not to be used as a guide to what was worn during WWII. And, just an educated guess, but those pipes seem to be post-WWII also (1960s would be my guess).

[OC Richard]

According to at least one old book I have: Although some Camerons wear it as a hunting tartan the Cameron of Eracht was never regarded as a clan tartan...

Yes as our own Peter MacDonald writes in his work The 1819 Key Pattern Book:

"Tradition has it that this tartan (Cameron of Erracht) was devised in 1793 when the regiment (the 79th Foot) was raised... given the lack of earlier portrait evidence to support these patterns (Cameron of Erracht and MacDonald) as family tartans, and also their basic colours and military connections, it is probable that both were designed for military units (the 79th Foot and the Glengarry Fencibles) in the latter part of the 18th century."

However, Donald C Stewart, in his The Setts Of The Scottish Tartans, has the following:

"The Erracht Cameron is the only Cameron tartan recorded by Logan (The Scottish Gael, 1831)... the Erracht Cameron was for long treated as a Hunting tartan..."

The tartan used as the Cameron clan tartan in modern times appears to have been invented by the Allen brothers in the 1840s (red with four equal green bands, one of a number of Allen brothers tartans using the same pattern).

[Dutypiper]

Richard, have you a photo of a regular piper with the badge at each arm ? I never saw a piper in No2 Service Dress jacket or khaki Shirt or Pullover with bagpipe badge on both arms, I have several ex piper jackets, only located the badge are on the right arm. As here the black watch piper in pipers of the trenches movie! he is wearing the badge at the right arm , there you can see both arms , also I could not find a photo! ? I would be happy to see one! I believe it is only a pipemajor and drum major thing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oXiAu3P0LM

[OC Richard]

Richard, have you a photo of a regular piper with the badge at each arm ? I never saw a piper in No2 Service Dress jacket or khaki Shirt or Pullover with bagpipe badge on both arms, I have several ex piper jackets, only located the badge are on the right arm. As here the black watch piper in pipers of the trenches movie! he is wearing the badge at the right arm , there you can see both arms , also I could not find a photo! ? I would be happy to see one! I believe it is only a pipemajor and drum major thing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oXiAu3P0LM

You might well be right! It's not often in a photograph that you can see both arms, where the badges would be.

Of course Pipe Majors have the piper's trade badges on both arms, as can be seen in many photos.

[Bruce Scott]

A couple of WWII pipers also showing both sleeves.

Pipers MacNeill (left) & Chisholm, talk to a French girl of St Valery who is wearing a skirt made from the tartan of a Cameron Kilt,
left in the town in 1940.