Paddy Mayne

by Hamish Ross

  When no signal was received from Gain, Mayne made arrangements instead to drop the following night, 7 August, in the area of Operation Houndsworth. But he and Sadler almost came to grief in the UK:

  Our plane, a Stirling, crashed, cartwheeling on take-off. The Dispatcher was injured but none of the rest of the crew of three – two SAS and a Jedburgh – although we were all bruised and battered. After another briefing, we took off with the same crew, minus the Dispatcher. And without the Dispatcher, of course, you had to arrange for the checking and dispatch of your own equipment and yourselves.54

  Without a dispatcher, Brigade had no indication of conditions at the dropping zone until Mayne signalled that ‘it was a superb drop’,55 Brigade then radioed him a subtle reminder of the conditions under which he was expected to work: ‘Don’t delay on your travels. Remember your talk with General. Tony [Marsh] has all the Jeeps he can man. Good luck.’56 The morning after Mayne dropped, Fraser McLuskey, the regiment’s Padre, met him ‘in Bill Fraser’s white silk parachute tent, lying lazily on a sleeping bag, chatting with Bill and with Mike Sadler’.57 Radio communication between two groups in the field was not direct; it required a two-stage process: a message was transmitted from one group to Brigade who re-radioed it to the other. At this time, of course, neither Mayne nor Brigade knew anything of what had happened at the Gain base, so Mayne’s first report came from Houndsworth, in the early hours of 11 August, with information that the Germans were evacuating large parts of the Massif Central and rallying at Clermont-Ferrand. Brigade, in the meantime, had been informed of the attack on the camp at Gain and relayed the information to Mayne; and four hours later, they followed it up by reporting that the alarm at the base was now over and that thirty Jeeps could be taken at short notice. But by this time Mayne was already on his way.

  Mayne drove through enemy-occupied territory to the Gain base in daylight on 11 August and completed the journey the same day. He took command of the situation on the ground and the following day signalled that the dropping zone was very good and could take the large drop; he ordered all parties to bring Michelin maps and each Jeep patrol a 3-inch mortar. Then he accounted for the squadron: he was with Riding and fifteen men; Watson had seventeen and Bateman nine; and he suggested an allocation of Jeeps on the basis of twelve each to Watson and Riding and six to Bateman, with the order that they were all to work to the north. Mayne also instructed that Riding was to be promoted to Captain, and he appointed him forthwith to command the squadron. Of the enemy’s disposition, he indicated that there were reports of 142 Tiger tanks hidden in the forest of Marchinou; the following day, he sent out reconnaissance parties to watch the main roads, Orléans–Pithiviers and Orléans-Montargis.58 On the former, large-scale movement of enemy transport moving north-east was observed and this information was transmitted to Brigade.59 On account of Allied air supremacy the enemy – in the hope of avoiding detection – had begun to use lower-grade departmental roads, so Mayne demanded that the RAF be told that these roads were also used by SAS Jeep patrols. He also asked that all Jeeps have recognition marks and large Union Jacks; and he expressed his view that Jeeps in this area could not fail to be a success.

  Over the following week there was a lot of activity. On 14 August, a Resistance camp was attacked and Mayne ordered enemy trucks to be bombed. The next day he called for a canal bridge to be bombed. On 16 August, the base signalled that Tprs Ion and Packman were missing from a patrol. They had been captured by SS troops. It was later learned that they suffered the fate of SAS troops who fell into the hands of captors who followed the Führer’s order: they were taken into a wood and shot. At the base, however, detailed information on enemy troop movements – indicating whether the unit was infantry, SS, or accompanied with tanks – continued to be sent to Brigade who on 17 August responded, ‘Excellent. Please continue information especially of movements through the gap. Best of luck to all.’60 Signs of large-scale disorganised enemy movement started to become apparent as the Allies began to break out of the Normandy front and the number of prisoners increased. Mayne reported that while the FFI was disarming them, they did not have the resources to guard or feed them. Although the enemy appeared to be establishing a line between Malesherbes and Estony, he believed it to be only a rearguard as the general retreat eastwards continued.

  A large consignment of Jeeps for both 1 and 2 SAS was due to be landed in the Normandy area and Mayne, accompanied by Sadler and Riding61 drove through enemy lines and into the American lines towards Le Mans. Late in the morning of 19 August they reached Brou and in the afternoon arrived at Le Mans, where Mayne by radio requested the position of the landing ground. That afternoon, twenty-eight planes carrying Jeeps arrived at Rennes; a further five were delayed by weather but expected at first light next day. On 20 August, all of the force met Mayne at noon at the Hôtel Central at Le Mans. He ordered that Parsons and Watson rendezvous at Brou and also that ‘Black Friday’ be sent over as representative of the SAS, for he intended to lead a group of Jeeps through the lines. It was one of several times that Mayne penetrated the German and American lines with reinforcements; a journey that carried the risk of being strafed by Typhoons and, as Sadler recalled, ‘You never knew who you were going to meet next, a German or an American, a Frenchman or what.’62

  In Le Mans there came a sense of release from being both hunter and hunted which found exuberant expression, and nimble footwork on the part of Mayne, as Sadler recounts:

  Paddy had a very good power of thinking. I think I may have mentioned to you an incident we had after we drove up north to Le Mans where we met Roy Farran and some people. We got very plastered; we had lunch on a balcony in Le Mans and, after lunch, Paddy and I were driving out through the town firing our twin Vickers K between the buildings, you know. And then afterwards, we drove out into the country; we were stopped by a squad of Americans: they had orders to waylay us. Well, we started off by talking French to them – well it was pretend-talking French – ‘Je ne parle pas anglais.’ And the young lieutenant was trying to communicate to us, patting our guns and saying, ‘Ne bon, ne bon’. And their sergeant turned to the lieutenant and said, ‘Don’t let these men fool you sir, they speak better English than you do.’ We were then wheeled in before some local American general who started to say something about firing guns and Paddy immediately said, ‘Oh yes, we were clearing our guns. I hope we didn’t frighten your men, sir.’ To which the general had to reply, ‘No, of course not’. And then we were bidden to clear our guns somewhere else. But you know, Paddy very quickly thought of an approach that would serve.63

  Mayne’s disbelief, as we saw earlier in the claim of the 4th French Parachute Battalion officer that hand grenades had exploded inadvertently, stemmed from a close knowledge of the make-up of the weapon. It was knowledge he used on one occasion when he was with Sadler, to the discomfort of his fellow diners:

  Another example of his sense of humour was when we were in France. We were having lunch with some Frenchmen and Englishmen, when Paddy put a hand grenade on the table and removed the pin. It started smoking. Now, there is a seven-second fuse. Some threw themselves to the floor thinking that he had gone mad and was taking them all with him. But of course he had doctored the grenade earlier, having cut off the detonator.64

  However, Sadler was not one of those who dived for cover. ‘No, I didn’t; I felt confident enough in Paddy and that says something.’

  Mayne and Sadler were not together all the time. Sadler’s winning the MC was the result of one of these trips through both lines. On one occasion Sadler set out with two Jeeps on a mission which took him across the busy Orléans–Montargis road, which was well patrolled by the enemy. About a hundred yards from the crossing point, they spotted a German patrol with machine-guns. Sadler drove up the road towards the patrol until he was a short distance from them, waved to them and then crossed the road. It was only after they had crossed that the enemy realised the identity of the Jeeps and opened fire. Sadler manoeuvred h
is Jeep into position, covered the other Jeep and succeeded in knocking out the enemy machine-gun.65

  It did not take long after the breakout from Normandy for the Allied Armies to move east along the coast and towards Paris. The city was liberated by the French 2nd Armoured Division and the US 4th Infantry Division on 25 August. So was born the myth of France united in opposition to the occupation when an emotional de Gaulle, addressing a vast crowd, said – astonishingly, in the light of the sacrifices made by the Allied Armies in Normandy – ‘Paris libéré! Libéré par lui-même, libéré par son peuple avec le concours des armées de la France’66 (Paris liberated! Liberated by herself with the support of the French Armies). De Gaulle’s speech was filmed by an American military film crew and was shown in cinemas in the USA and the UK; but that part of his speech was not translated into English.

  For almost a week Mayne was out of radio contact, crossing and recrossing the Allied and enemy lines, until 28 August, when he signalled from Houndsworth, ‘Sorry I have been out of touch with you but have no W/T [wireless telegraphy]. Have you anything for me? Melot also here.’ From this time on in the campaign, Mayne’s role increased in complexity as the scope for SAS work broadened, with enemy troops moving eastwards to avoid being trapped between two Allied Armies, one in the north, another moving up from the south. Two more operations came on stream: Haggard in the area of the Loire, and Kipling west of Auxerre. The Haggard area was particularly suitable for Jeep patrols, but Mayne was annoyed to find that the Jeeps which had arrived were not armoured. It was the job of a team of RASC fitters to adapt them with armour. Immediately he signalled, ‘What the devil is wrong with Page and the other fitters?’ Brigade’s unusual response was that a letter explaining the position was on its way to Mayne with C Squadron. On 31 August, Mayne decided that Bill Fraser’s A Squadron, which had performed very effectively for almost three months in Houndsworth, should be relieved by Tony Marsh’s C Squadron, and he signalled his intention to Brigade. On 1 September, news was broadcast that Gen Montgomery had been promoted to Field Marshal; and at 1200 hr Mayne radioed, ‘Give Monty our congratulations.’ Two and a half hours later Brigade confirmed, ‘Monty has been congratulated.’67 With the increased number of groups in the field, communication overload on the wireless time schedules began to lead to confusion. Mayne gave his 602 set to Maj Harry Poat, his second-in-command, and asked Brigade for an MCR 1 and his own bulletin to be sent out on a supply aircraft. But detailed coordination could only be done in person, and on 2 September Mayne moved to Kipling.

  The Paris Basin, the Loire Valley and the tip of the Massif Central

  When it arrived, Brig McLeod’s letter to Mayne gave the detailed reason why Jeeps had not been adapted with armour. Preliminary discussion had taken place on the future role of the SAS: one option involved rounding up Gestapo and SS personnel when the Allies moved into Germany. The code name for this idea was Policeman. McLeod then followed up his letter, signalling that he was flying to France to meet with his field commanders on the evening of 5 September in the prefecture at Orléans. At the meeting Mayne expressed his disagreement with the Policeman option; he preferred an alternative involving the unit in Norway, but agreed that if the police option came about, he would not resign.68 He also said that he would sound out his colleagues; and two days later, from the Kipling base, he signalled their assent in this manner: ‘Policemen very well liked here.’69

  The value of the work of SAS units in France was acknowledged by the commander-in-chief and his commanders in the field when Gen Browning broadcast to SAS troops behind enemy lines on 7 September, telling them that, in the view of the High Command, they had done more to hasten the disintegration of the German 5th and 7th Armies than any other single effort in the Army. He continued: ‘To say that you have done your job well is to put it mildly. You have done [it] magnificently.’70 Within the hour, Mayne responded on behalf of 1 SAS that Gen Browning’s broadcast had been terrific and was greatly appreciated.71

  For his part, Mayne expressed his acknowledgement and thanks, along with that of Bill Fraser, to ‘Jakie’ (Maj the Honourable J.J. Astor) for the work of his Phantom patrols. He also commented favourably on the work of Operation Wallace, which was under the command of Roy Farran of 2 SAS, for keeping its ‘eye on the ball from dawn till dusk’. He moved then to Houndsworth, where on 17 September he learned that John Tonkin had been awarded the MC and Sgt Scott the MM. He reported that Tony Marsh’s C Squadron had destroyed over one hundred enemy vehicles in two weeks, but, as Mayne put it, their work was becoming more difficult, as there were fewer Germans around and more Americans.

  The unit had not often to endure visits from staff officers to its forward bases, but with the enemy gone the time was right for them to appear. Brigade signalled to Mayne that a visit from four officers was planned; its code name was, appropriately enough, ‘Good-time Charlie’, and, in the cryptic nature of army slang and with the brevity of wireless messages, Brigade asked Mayne if he could mount. Mayne seemed equable at the prospect but could not refrain from quipping in reply, ‘impossible to mount unless bring saddle and spurs’, and simply asked for the party’s expected time of arrival. On 25 September, Maj Cliffe, a Royal Marine officer at Brigade, and his party arrived at Mayne’s headquarters near St-Amand-en-Puisaye.

  With SAS operations in France over, it had been decided that part of Mayne’s regiment would be engaged in Operation Policeman. Mayne selected C Squadron for the role and on 23 September he told Tony Marsh that ‘demob instructions’ did not apply to him, that he should concentrate his Squadron at Cosne, on the Loire, refit and rearm his Jeeps, and expect to receive, as Mayne put it, pleasant orders. Three days later, Mayne received the confirmation he had been expecting that Scott and Almonds had been commissioned into 1 SAS on 3 and 10 September respectively. The same day, he informed McLeod when C Squadron would arrive in Brussels – but he did not tell him that by making it on 1 October, he was giving them some leeway.

  When C Squadron gathered at Cosne, Mayne met them and gave them explicit orders; he also gave an implicit message. Roy Close described what then happened:

  It was then he told us we were going to rendezvous in Brussels, which was the British Army’s Headquarters – Paris was the US Army’s Headquarters and was out of bounds.

  He gave us the route we should take to Brussels – it would take us about two days, perhaps three. And he said, ‘I’ll see you in Brussels in four days time.’ So where did we next find him? In Paris. We all went straight to Paris and we were the first British troops there since 1940; Paddy was in a hotel in the Champs-Élysées. I had a French corporal, a chap who came out of France and then operated with us and who had relatives in Paris. I went off with him in search of his cousins. We then went on to Brussels and reported on the appointed date.72

  Paris has always attracted writers, lyricists and romantics, but Paris, newly liberated after four years of enemy occupation, was a honeypot for any Allied troops who could contrive to get there. So Mayne and Sadler drove there. No modest pension for them – they stayed in the Hôtel Claridge in the Champs-Élysées.73 In the atmosphere of the freed city, it was perhaps inevitable that they found their way to a maison de rendez-vous. It was the kind of establishment where one could have a drink and make a date with a girl, if one fancied. It was a much better style of thing than a common-or-garden brothel. They took girls out for meals and had some jolly parties, but Mayne may not have pursued his opportunity to its logical conclusion. He was happy enough to invite a girl out, and he would have enjoyed her company; but he had a puritan conscience about casual sex.

  On 30 September, McLeod flew to France and met Mayne on the airfield at Briare. Final arrangements were made for the remainder of the regiment to return to the UK, and on 2 October Mayne signalled that if a supply plane was due at Briare, he, Sadler and Poat would return on it.

  On top of the pile on Mayne’s desk at his headquarters in the UK was the report of Maj Cliffe’s visit to 1 SAS. Th
e report had gone to Brig McLeod, who was a stout defender of SAS principles but did not have experience of how the unit worked in the field.74 McLeod simply accepted Cliffe’s report at face value, and to be helpful he extrapolated three points from it (two dealt with communications and one with mobile baths) and, on 5 October, sent a memorandum to Mayne for his comments.

  Mayne did not take long to respond. On 7 October, disdaining to consider the three points in any depth, he wrote a critique of the report and impugned its author, choosing the most effective weapons against an inexperienced staff officer – ridicule and sarcasm.

  Subject: Major Cliffe’s report on his visit to France.

  It would appear to me that Major Cliffe is taxing his ability overmuch in attempting to write an appreciation of an operational area on the strength of spending five hours there six weeks after the enemy have left. I also consider that his remark that the bases appeared to be well sited is presumptuous and unnecessary unless Major Cliffe believes that he is more experienced than Major Fraser, the officer who selected those sites.