50 Pence - Charles III D-Day Beach Piper

Issued to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, this piece commemorates Bill Millin, the young private who waded ashore at Sword Beach on 6 June 1944 playing his bagpipes under direct fire — at the explicit instruction of Lord Lovat, who dismissed the War Office's prohibition on pipers in combat as applying only to the English. Millin reportedly played "Highland Laddie" and "The Road to the Isles" as troops fell around him. Captured German soldiers later told him they had not shot at him because they assumed he had lost his mind.