(May 9, 2018 at 9:18 pm)Minimalist Wrote:
Fucking bagpipes.
It pains me to see highlanders wear red. They should be fighting the soldiers dressed in red. Instead their country was sold by politicians for English gold, and the soldiers used as cannon fodder to extend its empire.
They were rather good at it though. I have a book on Scottish martial arts which tells how native Americans complained how the white men wearing skirts didn't just stand there and get killed like all the others. That's what happens when you have a martial history of fighting superior numbers and a culture of using guerilla warfare instead.
The bagpipes are a form of psychological warfare. Take Bill Millin for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin
Quote: Pipers had traditionally been used in battle by Scottish and Irish soldiers.[5] However, the use of bagpipes was restricted to rear areas by the time of the Second World War by the British Army. Lovat, nevertheless, ignored these orders and ordered Millin, then aged 21, to play. When Private Millin demurred, citing the regulations, he recalled later, Lord Lovat replied: "Ah, but that’s the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply." He played "Highland Laddie" "The Road to the Isles" and "All the blue bonnets are over the border" as his comrades fell around him on Sword.[1] Millin states that he later talked to captured German snipers who claimed they did not shoot at him because they thought he had gone mad.[6]
Quote:he was armed only with his pipes and the sgian-dubh, or "black knife", sheathed inside his kilt-hose on the right side.[2] In keeping with Scottish tradition, he wore no underwear beneath the kilt. He later told author Peter Caddick-Adams that the coldness of the water took his breath away.[7]
Quote:Lovat and Millin advanced from Sword to Pegasus Bridge, which had been defiantly defended by men of the 2nd Bn the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry (6th Airborne Division) who had landed in the early hours by glider. Lovat's commandos arrived at a little past one p.m. at Pegasus Bridge although the rendezvous time in the plan was noon. To the sound of Millin's bagpipes, the commandos marched across Pegasus Bridge. During the march, twelve men died, most shot through their berets.[8]
