Hauptmann

Name:Charles HowellsCampaign or Service:Indian MutinyService Date:1857-1858Service Location:IndiaRegiment or Unit Name:1st Battalion H Ms 23rd R W FusiliersRegimental Number:4561

Name:Charles HowellsCampaign or Service:Crimean WarService Date:1854-1855Service Location:CrimeaRegiment or Unit Name:23rd Royal Welsh FusiliersRegimental Number:??1

Found this great site and wanted to share it. Uboat insignia and emblems. You can find the emblem of the Uboat you're intro'd in:

http://www.uboataces.com/ref-insignia.shtml

Dan

http://stevieb1972.com/the-mad-piper

http://www.culture24...nflict/tra22174

http://www.dawlishnewspapers.co.uk/news.cfm?id=29113&headline=Death%20of%20'Piper

May he rest in eternal and well earned peace.

Dan

http://caperfrasers....ndo-piper-hero/

Born: 14 July, 1922, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Died: 17 August, 2010, in Torbay, Devon, aged 88.

On Sword Beach during the D-Day Normandy landings in 1944, as German troops opened fire on his comrades, Bill Millin marched up and down along the shore playing Highland Laddie plus other tunes on his bagpipes.

William Millin was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs John

Millin. The family crossed the Atlantic in 1925, settling in Shettleston, Glasgow. They lived on Gilmerton Street and Millin was educated at Budhill School, Shettleston. He played the bagpipes in the Boys' Brigade band before joining the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders as a piper and a commando. His first public piping session was in 1940, an event run to raise funds for the construction of a Spitfire.

Millin, as his mother put it, "was always a good fighter", hence his position as Piper of the 1st Special Service Brigade (redesignated, 1st Commando Brigade in December 1944), a commando unit. The unit consisted of some of the toughest men from the Army and the Royal Marines, all of whom were trained in wilderness survival, close combat, navigation, weapons, demolition and crucially, amphibious assaults.

On 6 June, 1944 Millin, along with his fellow commandoes approached Sword Beach, Normandy as part of the D-Day landings which would see the largest amphibious invasion of all time as 160,000 troops entered France to fight the Nazis.

1st Special Service Brigade was commanded by Brigadier Simon Fraser, the 15th Lord Lovat. Lovat was a passionate and patriotic Scot, and Millin was his personal piper. Lovat was also a fan of the Scottish tradition whereby a piper played his comrades into battle, a tradition banned by the military hierarchy. However, as Lovat not quite factually pointed out: "That was the English Army."

Millin climbed aboard his landing craft with 21 men, including Lovat, and sat as the vessel followed the course of the Hamble River out toward the Solent. He was in the leading boat and Lovat had asked him to play the troops out in to open sea. As they sailed up the Hamble, Millin piped The Road to the Isles. He stood proud on the bowsprit as the music was pumped through the loudhailer. As the thousands of transport craft gathered for the mass assault on the French beaches, Millin's pipes could be heard above all else. As the sea became rougher and the craft less stable Millin stopped piping and the Channel crossing began.

Following a fitful night's sleep, the men made their way to the deck and prepared for what, for some, would be the last charge of their short lives. Millin recalled an air of calm aboard their small craft: "Everyone was behaving normally, I mean checking their kit, putting their kit on… We all got up on deck and we stood in the freezing wind watching the shoreline.

Millin followed Lovat, watching the tall man crash into the waves, and then watched a man behind take a bullet to the face and sink. Millin saw that as a sign to hurry along and he launched himself into the waves. As his kilt (a 100-year-old one his father had worn in the Great War) rose up he started piping Highland Laddie.

Once Millin had finished that first tune Lovat requested another. "Well, when I looked round – the noise and people lying about shouting and the smoke, the crump of mortars, I said to myself, 'Well, you must be joking surely.' He said, "What was that?" and he said 'Would you mind giving us a tune?' 'Well, what tune would you like, Sir?' 'How about The Road to the Isles?' 'Now, would you want me to walk up and down, sir?' 'Yes. That would be nice. Yes, walk up and down.'"

As the troops moved inland Millin found himself almost alone on the beach, but as he had not been told to stop playing he ran up and followed the men, playing them all the way to Pegasus Bridge, piping Blue Bonnets Over the Border.

On 10 June, Millins's luck ran out; although he wasn't shot himself, his bagpipes were hit by shrapnel and their war came to an end. In 2001 those same pipes, along with his family kilt, commando beret and knife, the military kit of the "mad piper", were donated to the National War Museum of Scotland.

Following the war Millin was offered employment on the Lovat estate, but grew restless and joined a theatre, where he played his pipes, before retraining as a mental health worker in the late 1950s. He spent the rest of his working life as a care worker, moving to Devon in 1963 and frequently returned to pay his respects the friends who lost their lives in Normandy.

In 1962 a film, The Longest Day, told Millin's incredible story. He was played by Pipe Major Laspee, the Queen Mother's official piper. Millin suffered a stroke in 2003 and had been living in a nursing home in Dawlish since. There is currently a fundraising campaign to construct a bronze statue on Sword Beach to commemorate Millin's heroics on 6 June, 1944.

William "Bill" Millin's wife Margaret predeceased him and he is survived by their son John.

(I have included the passing of Piper Millin in the Cape Breton News primarily because of my love for the pipes but most importantly I had the good fortune to meet Lord Lovat on two occasions. I went to Inverness and visited with him one Sunday morning at his home and shared a couple of drinks of real Scotch Whiskey with him at 10 a.m. in the morning. Here he was a Lord and was hiding the fact we were having a drink from his wife who was at the time doing of all things washing the car with their handyman as he said, "before Mass." Again during one of Nova Scotia's Gathering of the Clans I met him at Ian Fraser's farm outside of New Glasgow. My brother (another Simon Fraser) went to the Gathering and he too had the good fortune to meet him. CAPER)

(His passing sent to me by John K. Downs)

Mike... MANY thanks for posting this. And heavens... please don't take it down! I only wish I knew how to capture and post it here for good. It's a great piece on a great man! My vote... leave it!

Dan

Cool... how old is this belt ?

I'm guessing it's probably from the 70's or 80's but perhaps one of our members with more expertise will be able to nail it down closer.

Dan

Here's what Michael Johnson posted on the other thread:

Charles Harris 1st Battalion H Ms 23rd R W Fusiliers

Charles Hicks 1st Battalion H Ms 23rd R W Fusiliers

Charles Holder 1st Battalion H Ms 23rd R W Fusiliers

Charles Houghton 1st Battalion H Ms 23rd R W Fusiliers

Charles Howells 1st Battalion H Ms 23rd R W Fusiliers

Charles Hulland 1st Battalion H Ms 23rd R W Fusiliers

Getting closer! The proper naming for this regiment is 1st Bn 23rd R.W.FUSrs., which matches the end of the naming quite well.

Many thanks Michael!

Dan

And what I think I'm seeing:

I redid the scans of the rim as the first time I did it I think I just held it... this time I used pliers to gently hold it in position on the scanner. I've posted them in my other thread as well:

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7724&pid=435957&st=60&#entry435957

Hoping against hope one or more of you can pick out another letter or number that we need to nail this down. But barring that I'll still try and get magnifications made when I'm over in Devils Lake.

Again keeping my fingers tightly crossed! It's like being so close I can reach out and touch it... and yet just out of reach.

Dan

I've still not been able to get back over to Devils Lake to get my friend to put his magnifier on this. But I tried again doing scans of the rim of the Indian Mutiny medal. I think last time I just held it whereas this time I used a pair of pliers to steady it for the scans. Got several shots. I'm hoping against hope this can help in picking out at least one more letter or so that would help nail this down. I did them at a resolution of 900.

Keeping my fingers tightly crossed!

Here we go:

The first letter after Chas... possibly an H... at least that's what it looks like to me. After that possibly an O or a U? I'm pretty sure on the H though. But tell me what you think.

And the rim:

Dan

Here's some better scans of my RNFR medal:

Great pictures Vic! Many thanks for sharing.

Safe travels my friend!

Dan

Horse Donation Plaque in gold. Yes, I know... only "supposed" to be in black iron. But John Angolia saw this in person when I visited him many many moons ago and gave it a thumbs up. No explantion for it being in gold though. Never seen another. Picked it up in a small pawn shop in Florida for about $50 back in the day when TR could still be had for fairly cheap. The shop only had one other TR and/or item of militaria and that was a German Heer Stahlhelm which was also original.

I'd love to know the history behind this one but so far nothing has come to light. But would eventually love to add some of these badges to it to make a small sub collection some day.

Dan

Any thoughts on the maker on this one?

Dan

And another black:

Don't know why I didn't post this one here yet but here it is:

They were often awarded for long or useful service. So not just for valor in times of war.

Hope this helps.

Dan

You're certainly getting great deals for sure! Congrats! I've been on the lookout for a WW1 uniform or at least a tunic. Kim's grandfather enlisted as a Private, went to artillery officer's school in Camp Taylor Kentucky and came out a 2nd Lt. So actually in honor of him I'd love to find a Privates artillery tunic as well as an Officers for the Dental Corps which is what he was commissioned into as he was indeed a dentist.

I keep hoping something like these will pop out of the woodwork up here in an estate sale or something but in the meantime my main sources are GMIC, Ebay, friends at shows. So far I've not been able to find/get one. Now I have to wait for my $$ situation to get better but hoping that won't be much further in the future.

But keep us posted on these great finds! It just proves that things can still be found coming out of the woodwork and deals can still be had!

Happy New Year!

Dan