by Hamish Ross
Knowledge of Mayne’s achievements was now becoming widely circulated in Northern Ireland. For example, his Alma Mater followed his career with interest. On 17 December 1943, The Vice-chancellor of Queen’s University, Belfast, wrote to him:
Dear Major Mayne
At the last meeting of the senate I had the very great pleasure of informing the members of the further distinction which you have achieved by being awarded a Bar to your Distinguished Service Order. The members of [the] senate joined in a tribute to the outstanding services which have led to this award, and desired me to send you their congratulations. In doing so I should like to add my own, and to assure you again of the admiration with which your university follows your service career.
With every good wish for continued success and a speedy and safe return.
Yours sincerely
D. Lindsay Keir78
It had been a crucial year for the unit. In the spring of 1943, if its continuing existence had been in doubt, by the autumn its future was assured for the remainder of the war. And Mayne’s role in bringing that about had been pivotal. By late 1943, the Special Raiding Squadron 1 SAS was recognised as an exceptional unit, both by the higher levels in the 8th Army and at Combined Operations HQ; and Mayne’s rating as leader had become more widely appreciated. This knowledge went to the top of Combined Operations when, in October, Laycock was recalled to the UK and appointed chief of Combined Operations with the rank of major-general. Early in 1943, if it had seemed that by comparison with 2 SAS the prospects for 1 SAS were bleak, by September the positions were reversed. Compared to Bill Stirling, Mayne was confident about the unit’s future and that confidence was based on knowledge. Evelyn Waugh still in the UK during Laycock’s absence in Italy, had finally fallen from favour with the special Services Brigade and turned instead to seek a position in 2 SAS, but he learned that Bill Stirling’s position was very insecure. Bill Stirling flew back to the UK in September and Waugh, on 23 September 1943, recorded in his diary that Stirling’s position was precarious; and on 25 September he wrote that he had acted as a sounding board for Stirling’s ideas about the future of the SAS. Then four days later Stirling had lunch with the prime minister to discuss the future of the SAS.79 By mid-October, Stirling was still in the UK discussing matters.
Mayne, on the other hand, had no access to the prime minister, but, as autumn turned to winter, he was optimistic about the unit’s future. In his second letter to Pleydell, he wrote, ‘Our future I believe is pretty rosy. I think the chaps will get what they deserve – they don’t know it and I don’t think they are worrying.’80
6
FAIR WIND FOR FRANCE
The role of SAS Troops remains exactly the same. Small parties operating in uniform behind the enemy lines to attack enemy lines of communication and to carry out demolition and sabotage tasks. Infiltration will be by land, sea or air according to circumstances and training in all methods will be carried out.
HQ SAS Troops Memorandum
Mayne flew home to the UK; but the Special Raiding Squadron followed by sea, sailing from Algiers on Boxing Day 1943. He was appointed Lt Col 1 SAS Regiment with effect from 7 January 1944; he had authorisation to create five squadrons. He made Maj Poat his second-in-command, and for squadron commanders he chose Majs Fraser, Paine, Marsh, Fenwick and Langton (HQ Squadron). By making Harry Poat his second-in-command, Mayne was not acting out of sentiment: his longest-serving colleague with the most combat experience was his friend Bill Fraser, but Mayne assessed that, notwithstanding Bill’s great qualities, he was not the man to be second-in-command.
Again, the priority over the next three months was training – but not for a continuation of the role that the Special Raiding Squadron had performed in Sicily and mainland Italy. The original tenets that David Stirling had conceived for the unit – attacking the enemy where it was vulnerable, in its lines of communication and transport, deep behind its own battle lines – had been re-established.
Having spent his first leave in Ireland for three years, Mayne was back on duty on Monday 3 January when, according to the pocket diary he kept, he crossed over to Ayrshire, where 1 SAS was to be based.1 Next day he travelled to London, and twenty-four hours later he headed north again for Greenock, where the SRS disembarked, were given one month’s leave and told to report for duty on 4 February at Mauchline.2 Mayne then drove the short distance from Greenock to Darvel and set to work. The unit was to be part of the Special Air Service Brigade, which was to consist of the two British SAS Regiments, two French parachute battalions and one independent Belgian parachute company; and Brigade Commander was Brig McLeod, a man with no experience of SAS work. Meanwhile, 2 SAS was still overseas and not due to return to the UK for another two months. Methodically, Mayne mapped out what he would have to do by way of recruitment and training; he worked late into the Thursday night, and most of Friday. It had been a hectic week, and a similar one lay ahead of him upon his return to London, so he took off Friday night and went to the cinema.
A network existed among those in Special Services who were now back in the UK preparing for the great enterprise. Brian Franks, who in a few months time was to command 2 SAS, was still operating as Brigade Major, Special Services Brigade. In that capacity, he had been outstanding during the time the Special Raiding Squadron was taking part in the Sicilian and Italian campaigns. But Franks wanted a move and he discussed his thoughts with Mayne. As a result, Mayne recommended him for a new position. But Franks’ wish to move could have been blocked in the interests of the service. However, on 12 January he took the first step: he spoke to Maj Gen Laycock and later the same day wrote to Mayne. Franks’ letter shows the nimble way that colleagues sometimes chose to refer to someone they knew who was now in an elevated position: Laycock could be both ‘the great man’ and Bob.
32 Drayton Court
Drayton Gardens
S.W. 10
Dear Paddy
I tried to get hold of you on the telephone today but failed. I gathered you would be back late! I am off for three days early tomorrow and expect that you will be away when I get back. I have leaped the first hurdle today in the shape of the great man (CCO), who I felt I should speak to first as I have been his employee for so long. I am going off with John Durnford-Slater tomorrow so will have a good chance of getting a crack at him, and I anticipate no great difficulty. I would like to get hold of you when I get back (Monday) and will try to do so through Ian Collins, so perhaps you will let him know how I can contact you and let you know how I have prospered.
I am very excited at at last having what looks like a proper job of work to do and I hope that you will not regret it – I will do my best to see you don’t.
This telephone no. will know where I am if you want me.
Yours ever
Brian
P.S. Bob asked me whether I thought you might have a job for Phillip Dunne – I said I would ask you. He might do you very well – he is full of courage and has done his parachuting – perhaps you will think about it. Phillip has NOT been confided [in].3
Such a network had its uses, but the scale of the recruitment that had to be undertaken – officers, sergeants and troopers – meant that Mayne had to travel long distances, visit other units and interview volunteers. Mayne, as his handwritten draft of the memorandum that accompanied its return makes clear, had no confidence in the car he was given.
This car, no. – was drawn yesterday, 12 February, for Commanding Officer, 1 SAS Regiment. The car has done a mileage of 45,000 miles and is mechanically unsound.
In the course of training his regiment, Lt Col Mayne will have to do a lot of arduous motoring and it is essential he should have a reliable car.
The car is being returned and it is hoped that you can supply a more suitable vehicle.4
He arranged to visit 1st Airborne Division on 24 February, 6th Airborne Division on the afternoon of the 25th, and on the morning of 26 February to interview volunteers for the SAS. It was a difficult task
in the circumstances: he had to build up the regiment quickly, but he did not want it to be at the expense of reducing the calibre of its personnel. He also selected some men for 2 SAS, who were not due back until the third week of March. Yet, on 17 March, Mayne’s letter to Dennis Reynolds of 2 SAS makes clear that he had to modify his standards, for he had reservations about some of the men he was sending him.5
However, his stance on selecting officers was uncompromising. He wanted no hangers-on, and his astuteness in discerning self-seekers was noted by those closest to him. At times his interview methods may have included an idiosyncratic test or two. There were occasions, it was said, when Mayne, interviewing an officer volunteer, would have two bumpers of whisky brought in. Although one version of this tradition has it that if the candidate declined the drink, the interview proceeded no further, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that temperance was not a habit that Mayne abhorred in others. His real purpose was to apply one of the oldest of psychometric tests so that he could find out more about the calibre of the applicant.6
Roy Close, by the time he joined the SAS, had had a lot of experience as a combat soldier. In 1940 he had been at Dunkirk, and, as an officer in the Airborne Division, he had seen active service in North Africa. Along with two friends, he volunteered for the SAS, but the three had agreed among themselves not to split up – either all of them should be accepted or none – and Close, the last to be interviewed, was deputed to tell Mayne. When he heard of their decision, Mayne perhaps recalled the time two and a half years earlier when he had urged David Stirling to seek out his friend Eoin McGonigal for L Detachment.
Paddy looked at me and smiled and said, ‘So it is giving an ultimatum to the Commanding Officer, is it?’ I apologised and said, ‘I didn’t mean it to sound that way.’
When I got outside and told them this, we realised we had screwed it up. ‘Let’s take our chances.’ So I went back and said that I was very sorry about what had happened and if only one or two of us were selected we would accept it. He smiled and nodded. We all got in. Whether it was because he was sympathetic to our problem or because he admired our nerve in asking, I’m not sure.7
When 1 SAS was based at Darvel, Fraser McLuskey was appointed as its first Chaplain. He, like Pleydell, the unit’s first Medical Officer, found Mayne a man of strengths – of perceptiveness and insight. He, too, noticed Mayne’s tendency to assess others. And that intuitive assessment – not networks or contacts– was Mayne’s only criterion for selecting officers. McLuskey cited an example:
He was remarkable for so many contrasts: he was a very big chap, six feet two inches and a broad build in proportion; enormously strong – he was a giant. I’m quite big, but he made me feel underdeveloped. But along with this great physical prowess, he was very discerning and quick-witted and sized people up immediately. If he thought they would fit, he could not have been kinder to them; if he thought that they wouldn’t fit, they didn’t stay for a minute.
A good friend of mine, who eventually served in the Parachute Regiment, was a very able officer. He wanted to join the SAS, but to his disappointment Paddy wouldn’t have him. I think what Paddy sensed was that he was a little pleased with himself. He was a very nice chap, but Paddy felt that there was something about him.8
He applied that judgement consistently; he was quite unyielding. That meant that he was not politic; and this was a strength in the unit: his colleagues knew that even filial bonds would not sway him. Mayne’s brother Douglas, who had been the recipient of graphic letters of the desert raids, thought about transferring to the unit from the RAF (there was a precedent: Flg Off Rawnsley had done so earlier). An opportunity to talk about it occurred when Douglas Mayne returned from a posting in Canada and spent a leave with the unit at Darvel. He did not broach the topic with his older brother but sounded out Bob Melot, a man of mature years and judgement. Melot warned Douglas to think of the long-term relationship, for Mayne would make no concessions: he would either make him or break him.
Then there were a few experienced men who desperately wanted to return to the unit. These were men whom Mayne certainly wanted. First, there were those who had been wounded and who were anxious lest they be relegated to other units on medical grounds. Sgt Ted Badger was in this situation. He had been wounded in the raid at Bagnara and his wounds required further treatment in the UK. Mayne visited him in hospital and then, after a further operation, Badger wrote to him from a convalescent hospital in Surrey on 5 February 1944:
Dear Major Mayne
Things still seem rather unsettled with me but I thought I had better write just to keep in touch. My keenness to rejoin the unit hasn’t diminished in the least.
The operation I had after seeing you last didn’t prove too successful and I’m to see the specialist on Wednesday to see if a third operation is practicable. If he says another operation then of course there’ll be another two or three months in dock, but should he decide that no more can be done, I may succeed in leaving hospital fairly soon. In that case could I wire you to do the necessary wangling for me?
I hope everything with yourself and the unit is fine and that I’ll soon be along to catch up on all the changes.
Sorry to pester you like this but I’m sure you understand.
Yours respectfully
E.A. Badger9
Mayne indeed understood; he wrote on the letter, ‘Answered’: not only did Badger return to the unit, on 24 June, he was granted an immediate commission. Second, there were those who had been captured and later escaped. Sgt Jim Almonds was in this category. He had been captured at the Benghazi raid, then held in an Italian POW camp before escaping in late 1943; and he, too, ‘longed to get back to the SAS’.10 Mayne learned of Almonds’s escape and told Pleydell in a letter that he was trying to meet him.11 When he learned of Almonds’s whereabouts, he wrote to him on 16 February 1944:
Dear Almonds
I was very pleased to hear you had escaped. I asked John Cooper to write to you and let you know that we would very much like to see you again.
You might write and let me know how everything is going with you.
Yours sincerely
R.B. Mayne12
Almonds soon rejoined the unit; and he too became commissioned.
In the midst of regimental priorities, Mayne had to attend to his own financial affairs. While he was home on leave, he reviewed his account at the Newtownards branch of the Belfast Bank and came to the conclusion that he had not been paid command pay: there were arrears of almost six months. So, on 6 February, he began a paper chase, writing to the Cox and Kings Branch, pay department of Lloyds Bank, who administered part of the Army’s payment system (having been diverted from their travel agency business for the duration of the war).
I am entitled to command pay of 3/- per day from 25/7/43. Authority G1/B/3064/30/A3 dated 13 Oct 43.
I am also entitled to parachute pay at 4/- per day. I believe I am not receiving these amounts. I would be obliged if you would look into the matter and if possible let me have a statement for the last six months.13
Whether or not the involvement of the private sector in the Army’s finance system helped speed things up, the Army Pay Office in Manchester responding surprisingly quickly on 16 February, pointing out that:
Parachute pay at 4/- per diem is being credited by me to your account monthly w.e.f. 1 July 1943; prior to that date you were receiving your allowances from MEF.
No notification has been received by me of your entitlement to command pay at 3/- per diem from 25 July 1943. Can you please forward to me a certified true copy of the authority you quote, G1/B/3064/30/A3 date 13 Oct 1943.
Will you also please inform me if you are still in command of the same unit in this country as you were overseas.14
Mayne sent a certified copy and confirmed his new rank and appointment, indicating that he would now be claiming command pay at 10/- per diem. From now on, he monitored his bank account by having the Newtownards branch send him monthly state
ments.
Friendships and social contacts from the period of No. 11 Commando were re-established during this time. Tommy Macpherson, who had been a colleague with Mayne and Fraser in those early days, had escaped from a POW camp in Italy and was now training with SOE for the part he would play in operating with the Resistance. He wrote to Mayne, telling him that he had learned of Mayne’s work from David Stirling, who had been with him in the same camp. He asked about Bill Fraser and gave Mayne information on the whereabouts of some of the other officers who had been in the Commando. Then he continued, ‘I am very sorry I didn’t know before that you were home, as I have been in most parts of the country during the past two months. With luck I shall get up to Scotland before the big bang, and shall look forward to see you then.’15 Around the same time, Macpherson also wrote to Lady Jean Graham, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Montrose, on whose land on the Isle of Arran the Commando had trained. As a result, on 20 February 1944 Lady Jean sent a letter to Mayne from Auchmar, Drymen.
Forgive me writing to you but Tommy Macpherson wrote and said that you and Captain Fraser were at Mauchline. My parents said I was to say that this house is open to you both for any short leave you would like to spend here, or any meal you would like to come here for.
We shall be here till about March 6th and then my sister-in-law will be here and we go to Arran. If you would like to come there just ring us up.
I met you once or twice when you were training in Arran.