Paddy Mayne Read online

  No research into Mayne himself had ever been carried out. And what has characterised references to him in more recent writing has been an uncritical acceptance of a fiction about how he came to join the SAS; and the transference of assumed underlying anger and aggression to the battlefield – with connotations of a latter-day Viking berserker – to account for his heroism. But Stirling did not invite Mayne to join the unit expecting an undisciplined killer: he had been told about Mayne’s leadership of his troop and his tactical skills during a Commando operation at the Litani river. And right from the beginning of the SAS, there was a philosophy concerning the qualities they looked for:

  An undisciplined TOUGH is no good, however tough he may be. Most of ‘L’ Detachment’s work is night work and all of it demands courage, fitness and determination of the highest degree and also, and just as important, discipline, skill and intelligence and training.10

  One of the earliest written assessments of Mayne by an insider included the quality of Mayne’s judgement and his firm conviction that ‘to take unreasonable risks was to invite disaster’. The SAS Regimental Association obituary of him stated that ‘In spite of his great physical strength, he was no “strong-arm” man.’11 Then, from the evidence of actions for which he was decorated, the personal capabilities which made him so successful were not blind fury or brute strength, but insightfulness, coolness of execution and the willingness to expose himself. Mayne’s first DSO was won in stealth raids, where he achieved the destruction of a great amount of enemy equipment, fuel and bomb dumps – strategic targets – hitting Rommel’s capabilities very heavily; in the early phase of the unit’s operation direct contact with enemy troops was usually avoided, although some specific attacks were made on them. Then one bar to Mayne’s DSO was received for a coolly conceived and brilliantly executed raid on a coastal battery, followed the next day by the audacious first daylight amphibious raid in the European theatre. The third bar to his DSO (his superior officers signed a citation for the VC) was for an action in which Mayne, by then the Colonel of 1st SAS Regiment, drove his Jeep under heavy and sustained enemy fire, while one of his officers manned its machine-gun, to rescue some of his men, who were wounded and pinned down.

  There was also a strong oral tradition which developed around the SAS desert raids. One of the most frequently cited stories concerned an attack on a building containing enemy troops that Mayne carried out during his first successful raid on an airfield. Over the decades, however, the storytelling tradition became corrupted to such an extent that when it appeared in the official biography of David Stirling,12 it was in the form of a vivid eyewitness account by someone who did not even take part in the raid (but who was with Mayne two weeks later when he raided the same airfield again).13 Indeed, this particular operation turns out to be almost a case study of the way Mayne’s reputation has become dramatised and isolated. Reporting of Mayne’s action that night first emerged, fashioned by the wartime press,14 as a description of nonchalant blood-spilling at close quarters; it diversified through frequent retelling, with versions appearing in numerous accounts of the Special Services; then it became part of late postwar reassessment, with airbrushing here and there; and sixty-one years after the event, it resurfaced in the correspondence columns of a newspaper as item number one in a litany of infamy about Mayne.15 But, as we shall see, the record shows that Mayne’s actions were neither different in kind nor distinguishable morally from those of several of his contemporaries; they were but one element in a wider strategy – an element that had, even before the SAS was formed, the approbation of the scholarly General Wavell.

  The zenith of the legendary Mayne is associated with the desert war. Thereafter, interpretation of him tends to fall into stereotypical attributes and characteristics. For example, such a first-rate exponent of irregular warfare, who, it was asserted, had a matching rebellious disposition, would not ordinarily be expected to conform to authority. True to pattern, claims were made that he was resentful and contemptuous of higher command. So it is somewhat surprising to read that, in September 1944 after the BBC broadcast news of General Montgomery’s elevation to field marshal, Mayne had a message of congratulations transmitted from his base in occupied France to be passed to the field marshal.16 Even more surprisingly, the following year, in north-west Germany, when the unit was not being used to best advantage and Mayne was making representations about the integrity of the SAS role, his brigadier signalled to him to be assertive in dealing with higher authority.17

  That the dominant interpretations of Mayne have been built up from second-hand account, anecdote and assertion is quite astonishing. It is also a matter of some concern that historical accuracy has been abandoned for versions of events, built round a number of accounts, which, as we shall see, in many cases are refuted by the contemporary documentation. Above all, that these have concentrated on placing him somewhere between a superman and a dissident in an elite unit means that there has been no proper consideration of the impact Mayne made on the continuation and development of the SAS. For after Stirling’s capture – less than eighteen months after he had founded it – in no sense could it have been assumed that, like an established battalion, the unit had an ongoing existence that superseded any individual leader. There was pressure that it should be disbanded or absorbed into the Commandos, because its usefulness had been confined to desert warfare. Mayne resisted that, but he had to compromise to some extent until he had opportunity to prove the unit’s calibre in Sicily and mainland Italy. Mayne’s understanding of what had to be done in the changed circumstances, before the unit’s original concepts were re-established for its role in France, is clearly discernible. All of which means that over the decades Mayne the leader has remained inscrutable.

  Fortunately, a large amount of contemporary evidence exists; so it is possible to get much closer to the man than at first might have seemed likely. Trained as a lawyer, Mayne kept good records. In No. 11 Commando, he was schooled by Lt Col Pedder, who was meticulous about report writing (Mayne’s report of the first SAS raid on the Gazala and Timimi airfields reflects the style). In 1943, when he took command of the unit, he opened a personal file in which he kept correspondence from contemporaries and drafts of letters he sent. His family, too, kept his papers; his most vivid letters, containing detail of the desert raids, were written to his younger brother Douglas; and his sister Barbara compiled a scrapbook of wartime newspaper cuttings about him and the unit. Then, most recently, on the death of his sister Frances, Mayne’s own journal, which he kept immediately after the war, was discovered. Frances had been a teacher who had risen to a high level in the ATS during the war and then returned to teaching. On Mayne’s death, all his papers passed to Douglas, but Frances must have read her brother’s journal and kept it as a memory of him, for Douglas knew nothing of its existence until 2002. It is a remarkable journal, written with candour, expressing Mayne’s feelings about others, reflecting on himself, and giving insights into his own personality. But it also reveals the extent to which he was thoughtful about leadership; and when considered alongside some of his wartime reports and analyses, it certainly enhances an understanding of the man.

  At the level of official documentation, detailed war diaries exist for No. 11 Commando, although little seems to have survived from the early period of the SAS – particularly the unit’s activities in the North African desert.18 But there is a valuable source, now known as the ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’, which belongs to the SAS Regimental Association. It is not really a diary, more a chronicle of the unit, entitled ‘Birth, Growth and Maturity of 1st SAS Regiment’. The document was compiled in the summer of 1945 by Mike Blackman, Intelligence Officer with the unit at the time, and was presented to Mayne. It contains the names of the original members of L Detachment, structured in two troops: No. 1 Troop, commanded by Jock Lewes, and No. 2 Troop, commanded by Mayne. There is an editorial introduction describing David Stirling’s founding of the regiment and a brief overview of it, followed by an
encomium to Mayne and to the way he led the unit. It is a compilation of the reports of many of the desert raids that Mayne undertook; as such it was selectively put together. It contains some press cuttings and details of personnel who would have been of particular interest to Mayne; it has reports that are copies of documents from war diaries held in The National Archives (occasionally Blackman used editorial discretion, making a phrase read more felicitously than the official record), in themselves quite valuable, particularly in view of the lack of war diaries covering the desert raids. After his death the ‘Diary’ passed to Mayne’s brother Douglas. Douglas gave access to it to Cowles (who described it as a scrapbook assembled by Mayne),19 to Marrinan (who did not refer to it but made use of it) and to Bradford and Dillon (who claimed that it had been appropriated by Mayne).20 Later, Douglas donated it to the SAS Regimental Association. Then there are, from 1943 onwards, the war diaries of the unit and the reports and evaluations Mayne himself wrote. Contemporary documentation can be illuminated by personal accounts, and this work is informed by written transcripts of extended interviews with a number of people who knew Mayne. These transcripts then became the basis of further dialogue with the respondents, and were cross-referred to contemporary documentation.

  Stripping away the legend leaves Mayne not diminished but enhanced. He emerges as a reflective man; a man of mental strength, moral integrity and sensitivity; a very modest man, who was complex, who had some local neuroses, which in the later stages of his life were overlaid to some extent by his war experiences. Mayne’s leadership and his contribution to the SAS Regiment will speak for themselves.

  2

  IRELAND 1915–1940

  Many times man lives and dies

  Between his two eternities,

  That of race and that of soul,

  And ancient Ireland knew it all.

  Whether man dies in his bed,

  Or the rifle knocks him dead,

  A brief parting from those dear

  Is the worst man has to fear.

  W.B. Yeats, ‘Under Ben Bulben’

  Robert Blair Mayne was born in Newtownards, County Down, Ireland on 11 January 1915. He came from a family that had been associated with business and the law for three generations. His great-grandfather William Mayne was a prominent businessman and property owner in Newtownards early in the nineteenth century, and a Justice of the Peace at a time when that office was regarded as having considerable honour. His grandfather Thomas Mayne was widely respected in the community for his upright character; and his father William Mayne continued the family tradition, owning property and running a retail business in the town.

  Blair, as he was to be known, was the second youngest of a family of four brothers and three sisters. He was named Robert Blair after his mother’s cousin, who at that time was serving as an officer in the trenches in France. The First World War that was to end all wars had been prosecuted for less than six months; the Easter Rising was a year into the future; and Ireland was not yet partitioned.

  When he was four years old, his younger brother Douglas was born. When he was ten, his oldest sister Molly got married and moved to Belfast. The two remaining sisters, Barbara and Frances, got on well with their four brothers – Tom was the oldest, Billy was younger than Barbara – but they had a very warm big-sister relationship with the two younger brothers, Blair and Douglas. The family home, Mount Pleasant, a graceful building set in about forty acres of woodland on high ground overlooking the town of Newtownards, was ideal for childhood play. The family was of the Presbyterian faith, although churchgoing was not assiduously practised. But the parents encouraged their children in sport and outdoor activities. William Mayne set an example, for he was a noted athlete and a champion cyclist. On a par with physical activities, the parents esteemed education as preparation for a career in business or the professions. When he reached secondary-school age, Blair attended the local grammar school, Regent House. In time the oldest brother, Tom, went into the family business with his father; Billy joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary; Barbara began a career in nursing; and Frances trained to become a teacher.

  As a boy, Blair began to show superb hand-and-eye coordination; he excelled at ball games; and at an early age he was a marksman with a .22 rifle. He played cricket and rugby at school and he took up golf. In his aptitude for sport, he was not an exception in the family: Frances was a very good golfer, Billy boxed for the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Douglas played rugby and golf. Among field sports, Blair went in for fly-fishing, horse riding and deer stalking. Physically he developed very early: he grew in height and breadth of shoulder and was exceedingly strong.

  At school he inclined more to the arts than the sciences. He responded sensitively to literature, but he had a poor opinion of the usefulness of his English-language curriculum, with its tedious parsing and general analysis, for when he was sixteen, he wrote in his diary that his studies had not given him the skill to write even a love letter.1 Socially he was rather shy.

  When he was at school, sport played the dominant part in Blair’s life. And it was then that early indications of his leadership qualities first emerged. He played rugby for Regent House School and, shortly before his seventeenth birthday, he was picked to play for Ards Rugby Football Club Second XV; and in little over a year he was captaining the team. The following season, he captained the First XV. He was young to be appointed captain, but the feedback from his own performance the previous two seasons was positive and he had sufficient self-reflection to accept the responsibility and quickly showed that he was able to handle the challenge of leading older, more experienced players. For under his captaincy the club were winners in the B Division of the junior league; and when he was presented with a club honours cap, it was recorded in the club minutes that ‘His enthusiasm and thoroughness made him an ideal leader’.2

  He chose an avenue for a career and in 1933 was articled to a firm of solicitors, T.C.G. Mackintosh of Newtownards; and in 1934, he matriculated at Queen’s University, Belfast to study law.

  By the time he went up to university, Mayne had reached physical maturity: he was six feet two inches tall, very powerfully built and exceptionally strong. And it was when he was a student that he was encouraged to take up boxing. He was a heavyweight and showed some promise; he was nimble on his feet; he carried a heavy punch and quickly learned ringcraft; and within two years he was ready to fight for the Irish Universities’ crown. In August 1936, sport was the focus of attention across the world when the Olympic Games were held in Berlin, amid spectacle designed to impress foreigners with the achievements of the Third Reich. It was also the year that Mayne won the Heavyweight Championship of the Irish Universities. Next, he reached the final of the British Universities’ Championship, but was beaten on points.

  However, he did not forsake his other sports. He kept up his golf – he had a handicap of eight – and in 1937 won the President’s Cup at Scrabo. He was also a member of his local swimming club. But rugby was his first love; he had been a rugby blue at the same time as he represented the university at boxing. Then in April 1937 his international career in rugby began when he was selected to play for Ireland in the final game of the season – the match against Wales. In this, his first international, he played well, and the following season he won two more caps for Ireland. But such a level of commitment came at a price: with him, like many high-achieving males at university, relationships with girls were relegated behind achievement.

  But while 1937 was a memorable year for the family, with the third son representing his country, it was overshadowed by death. The oldest son, Tom, died from gunshot wounds. It may have been an accident, or it may have been suicide.

  In April 1938, Mayne passed his final examinations as a solicitor and graduated from Queen’s University. But before he became a qualified solicitor, his sporting career soared: he was selected to join the British Rugby Touring Team, drawn from the four home countries – England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales – to tour Sou
th Africa. The tour lasted over four months, and the conditions were very gruelling. It is a mark of Mayne’s fitness that he played in twenty of the visitors’ twenty-four provincial and test matches. The first test was won by the Springboks, but, according to one South African paper, Mayne ‘was outstanding in a pack which gamely and untiringly stood up to the tremendous task’.3 The press in Newtownards reported that Mayne had been ‘generally voted the best lock forward ever seen in that country’ and after a game between the visitors and the Border XV it was said that he ‘again gave a brilliant display and was described as the most outstanding forward on the field’.4 The visiting team was referred to at one point as ‘the lions’ and in time that title was adopted as the British Lions. Although Mayne was at the peak of his form, by one of those anomalies of the game, he failed to score in the test series. The tour was a great success: the visiting team won the test series against the Springboks and eighteen of their twenty-four games; but they were ambassadors of sport as well, and both on and off the field they were in the limelight. They were made welcome wherever they went; sightseeing trips were arranged to a game reserve and they visited a gold mine.

  On one occasion, Mayne joined a group of South Africans who were going out hunting and he shot a buck and brought it back to the hotel where the team were staying. When the team was at Pietermaritzburg, he had a drink one evening with a South African called Niddrey, a meteorologist, whom he was to meet again in different circumstances eight years later.5 At one stage of the tour, someone noted at the time that in discussing South Africa Mayne said, ‘South Africa has an ugly face. That must be to conceal her riches underneath.’6

  During the final part of the tour, political concerns about Europe dominated the media in the UK, and disconcerting images appeared in newsreels and the papers of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain meeting Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler. But then the frenzy abated with pictures of the Prime Minister reassuringly holding up a piece of paper for the cameras; and the Sudetenland could now become part of Germany. One lone voice spoke out in the House of Commons on 5 October: ‘We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat. . . . And do not suppose that this is the end. It is only the beginning.’7 But Winston Churchill was not in government and had no power. For many it was a seven-day wonder, and life quickly got back to normal.