Paddy Mayne
Page 21
It is also rather worrying to realise that a staff officer, after studying aerial photographs in some detail, is unable to get a true picture of an area, and is surprised to find that the available DZs [drop zones] there are not large open fields. The statement that troops could have operated indefinitely unless their location was known to [the] enemy, is like saying the Army could march to Berlin unless something stopped them. I trust that Major Cliffe is not inferring that the casualties A and C Sqns suffered were their own fault.
Relationships with the Maquisards depended entirely on whether they were trustworthy or not. Liaison officers, when required, were engaged.
Resupply to the SAS parties, after initial teething troubles, was satisfactory. I see no reason why it should be changed.
Code word ‘Milton’ was, and is, sufficient. I can see no advantage in using phrases d’allusion.
If, as Major Cliffe states, it is extremely difficult to maintain discipline and keep morale once parties have completed their tasks behind the lines, we may consider ourselves extremely fortunate. We have had, as far as my knowledge goes, no drunkenness, absence, desertion, looting or rape.
A bath unit or laundry is unnecessary. It is always possible to find and heat water. Three years ago, we fixed a standard loading for our vehicles.
I hope I haven’t wasted as much paper as Major Cliffe.
R.B. Mayne
Lt Col
Comd 1 SAS Regt75
Satire or irony would have been inappropriate; for while Cliffe had to be slapped down, his report would not be retracted, so Mayne’s response had to impact on the well-meaning Brigadier – otherwise there would be follow-up, or further visits. In this respect Mayne’s method was very effective, for Brig McLeod simply wrote on Mayne’s memo, ‘No further action’.
Recognition of the regiment’s work and Mayne’s role in it was not long in coming. For coordinating and leading his regiment he was awarded a second Bar to the DSO. The citation concluded: ‘It was entirely due to Lt Col Mayne’s fine leadership and example, and his utter disregard of danger, that the unit was able to achieve such striking successes.’76
While the official French recognition for Mayne’s role at this time would not appear until the provisional government of the Republic was established, its acknowledgement of Mayne’s contribution is relevant to be included here. In the decree bearing admission to the Légion d’Honneur, which also comprised the award of the Croix de Guerre with palm, Mayne’s career in the SAS is laid out. With the precision and conciseness of the French language he is described as a magnificent leader of men, already of legendary reputation for his work in North Africa where he had members of the French SAS under his command. In France, he efficaciously supported the fight of the Maquis, organising the resupply of arms and coordinating their joint efforts, not hesitating to risk his life whenever the situation was critical.
Officier de grande valeur dont le cran et l’audace forcent l’admiration de tous. A beaucoup mérité de la reconnaissance française.77 (An officer of great worth, whose courage and daring demand the respect of all. He has greatly deserved the recognition of France.)
So the unit under Mayne’s command had come full circle and returned to fulfil its original purpose. However, the war was now being brought to the enemy’s frontier, and the long winter of 1944 lay ahead.
7
LATER OPERATIONS
Brigadier Calvert to Mayne: Any possibility of your going to see the German Command under flag of truce to arrange surrender? Mayne to Calvert: Is a flag really necessary?
SAS Signals Log, Operation Howard, 2 May 1945
In September 1944, discussions first began on a role for SAS troops in Norway; some thought was given to areas that were suitable for mountain-warfare training; the options canvassed were the Alps, Canada, Iceland and, the least spectacular, the Army’s mountain training centre at Banchory in Aberdeenshire. It was here in October that 1 SAS moved – with the exception of the detached C Squadron. However, plans for the use of the two British regiments in Norway were vague. From the military point of view, in the autumn of 1944 there was no intention of sending parties of SAS to harass enemy movement out of the country, as had been the case in France. Nor was there political pressure: indeed the Norwegian authorities objected to SAS operations against the enemy south of Trondheim in case these brought out the Norwegian underground in force. While ideas were left to simmer for a few months, the unit’s base moved from Nettlebed to Hylands Hall, near Chelmsford.
On 1 November, Maj Bob Melot died in a Jeep accident. He was driving to visit his mother in Brussels, the city where he had been born forty-nine years earlier.1 He was a remarkable individual: a pilot in the Belgian Air Force during the First World War, he had been wounded, then decorated with Croix de Guerre and Croix de Feu; twenty-two years later, by then in business in Egypt, he enlisted again and fought in Syria, the Western Desert, Sicily, mainland Italy and France; he had been wounded twice and decorated with the MC. He was fluent in a number of languages, with a charming but fervent personality. He had had a stand-up row with Brig McLeod over the latter’s choice of bases for the French campaign, telling him that there would have been as much efficacy in his strategy if he had ‘thrown shit at the map’.2 Mayne had a high regard for him and had the kind of relationship with him that allowed Melot to write to him as ‘Dear Paddy’. The previous November, Melot had flown to Cairo, then went to Alexandria – to see his wife, who had had a baby – at the time decisions about the future of the unit were being made. Melot had heard about the development when he was in Cairo, made further enquiries, then wrote a letter to Mayne which included the sentence, ‘I am most worried – no question for you to try and go to any operation without me!’3
It was in late 1944, three years after Operation No. 1, the attempt carried out by L Detachment on the Gazala and Timimi airfields, that Mayne learned how it was that his friend Eoin McGonigal had died. Two of McGonigal’s section on that raid, Tprs Blakeney and Davies, had been captured and held in a POW camp in Italy, but escaped after the Italian armistice and succeeded in reaching Switzerland. In October 1944 they were repatriated, and in due course returned to 1 SAS. Mike Blackman included in his compilation of the chronicle of the unit the statements made by Blakeney and Davies:
Statement by 2660354 Trooper Blakeney
The above-mentioned soldier proceeded on operation in the Western Desert on 16 November 1941 and was dropped in a gale. After landing he lay up until dawn and found himself alone with other members of his party, including Lt McGonigal, who was badly injured and died later. Other members of the party were as stated in the following report by Trooper Davies.
This party, which endeavoured to make for LRDG rendezvous, got lost and made their way to the coast, and were picked up by an Italian guard at Timimi airport as per report of Trooper Davies prior to arriving on the Italian mainland.4
Davies’s report used much the same terminology but included the personnel of the section, one of whom, Hildreth, had later died. So McGonigal’s section, too, on that ill-fated first raid, had not been able to reach their target; and McGonigal had died from injuries sustained on landing.
The final stages of the war provide a lot of insight into Mayne, both in his stewardship of the regiment and in respect of what manner of man he was. His pride in the unit revealed much about himself. He insisted on a high standard of turnout and smartness from the time he took command in 1943 – it was one of the characteristics that appealed to Gen Dempsey – and he maintained that level throughout the Sicilian and Italian campaigns; its high point had been an immaculate parade at Catania in Sicily. Now in October and November 1944, C Squadron had a high profile in Brussels, where it came under 21st Army Group, having been assigned to counter-intelligence work in Germany to hunt down Gestapo agents, suspected war criminals or groups of SS who might refuse to surrender. Mayne was confident that Tony Marsh would continue the tradition: on 9 October he signalled Marsh, hoping he was ‘ou
tdoing Catania turnout’,5 and on 13 November he wrote to him. Mayne’s letter is a revelation:
Dear Tony
I am sorry I wasn’t able to get over to see you last week but I was extremely busy. Your kit was held up by B.56 and 58 being out of action. The notes I left behind included yours, Lepine’s and Barnby’s expense sheets. Could you rewrite them and send them over. Also I would like yours and Ted’s operational reports.
I had a letter from the Brigadier yesterday in which he said that he had heard from Esmond that all your chaps had made an extremely good impression on the authorities in Brussels. The Town Major apparently said that you had been there six weeks and that he had not received the slightest complaint or heard any derogatory remarks against any of you. Damned good work. Ted [Badger] and yourself deserve many congratulations.
If you can now get them to wear their berets properly you will have achieved everything.
The chaps have done well. I hope some blasted fool doesn’t go away and do anything stupid and ruin everything.
I am going to Scotland tomorrow to see Harry [Poat] and Bill [Fraser]; I don’t think they are enjoying themselves much. Today I am seeing Collins about the Canadian business; if it comes off it will apply to you also.
I imagine that I should be able to come and give you all the griff in about ten days’ time. I hope to stay a little longer then. Mike Sadler will probably come with me.
We have moved camp again, to Chelmsford, not too bad, close to London which will suit the small dark man. Too many blasted flying bombs. It was good that you did not have any casualties in your near miss.
All the best and I hope to see you shortly. Give my best wishes to everyone.6
Two weeks later, he and Sadler arrived by Dakota at Brussels and they were driven to the Belgian barracks.7
Mayne’s exhortation about wearing the beret properly alludes, of course, to his insistence that it had to be worn straight across the forehead; anyone whom he caught sporting his beret at a rakish angle was in trouble. But his expression, ‘you will have achieved everything’, shows there was a tight policy in the unit about discipline and dress which was understood and operated by his officers. However, the most remarkable statement is his concern lest someone’s irresponsible behaviour off duty ‘ruin everything’. Now this sits oddly with tales that have circulated in later years about Mayne’s behaviour off duty. Few verifiable instances of these can be found. The most authentically detailed was the escapade (referred to in chapter 3) when, in No. 11 Commando in Cyprus, he manhandled a nightclub owner, putting the fear of God into him by firing his Colt around the man’s feet because he had overcharged and insulted him. So perhaps, it could be argued, here Mayne was being hypocritical: applying one standard to the unit and another to himself. But that does not fit, because he was intellectually honest. Perhaps, in progressing from lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel, he had become converted: a born-again rebel. But it is not that either.
Mayne radiated a forcefulness that not everyone was comfortable with. Pleydell, the unit’s first medical officer, described it in terms of kinetic energy. ‘Somehow, I thought, even when he was resting, Paddy managed to give the impression of massive latent force and power.’8 By late 1944, Sadler had worked with Mayne for three years and knew him quite well.
He was very good at containing himself most of the time, but I always felt that he was a bit of a volcano; and people were frightened of him because they felt that, I imagine, too; a lot of people were quite frightened of him. The trouble was that he had this reputation and everyone exaggerated that and played upon it.9
Sadler never saw that latent power erupting in Mayne, but he sensed its presence in, what he called, ‘playful violence’. He and Mayne had been at cabaret club in London a few times and one night Mayne said to him, ‘Why don’t we both just break off a table leg and go around and see how many people we can get.’ Sadler added, ‘I think he was joking.’ On another occasion, Mayne and he were drinking in a bar off Berkeley Square when Mayne ‘pulled the barman across the counter by his tie – because he took exception to something he’d said – until the fellow’s tie broke. . . . But he wasn’t really violent; he had a need to let off his spirits in that physical way.’10 So Mayne had not really changed from the time, in the Commando, when it had seemed to Tommy Macpherson that ‘Blair was very reliable – he was merely eccentric’11 and so his concern that no one by his behaviour should bring the unit into disrepute was not at odds with having his own peccadilloes. But peccadilloes they were, not basic flaws; Mayne’s self-control was very strong, as Roy Close observed:
Paddy would sometimes, during an inactive period (never during operations), have a bit of a binge. But, at the end of it, he would order a regimental parade. Everybody knew that he would take this regimental parade perfectly. We all had to be properly dressed. He was, and he inspected us to ensure that we were, too. Again, I think, we appreciated what it was all about. He was showing us that, though he had relaxed for a bit, he was in control and quite disciplined.12
However, Mayne’s idea of a completely professional approach to the work of the unit went beyond physical fitness, discipline, dedication and high standards of behaviour off duty: it spilled over into the private and interpersonal lives of himself and his men. He felt, for example, that it was incompatible to have professional commitment to the unit and form serious relationships with women. Of course, there were men in the unit who were married and who therefore had stable relationships. Even these relationships could be tested. In his personal file, Mayne had a letter from the distraught wife of one of his experienced men, the import of which may be that he had made another liaison, or that the strain of combat made him lose all perspective on a settled future after the war; for he had written to her, giving her the house and advising her to go her own way without him.13 As commanding officer of the regiment, that was not the only letter Mayne received from an anxious wife. Then earlier, during his Commando training in Arran, there had been the case of a subaltern who got engaged. He brought his fiancée over to the island for a weekend, in the course of which she jilted him and he shot himself immediately afterwards.14 While the unit had been overseas this sensitive area had been less of an issue; now that they were back in the UK in 1944, Mayne’s attitude generated tension in himself – because he was attracted to women. So a complex pattern emerges. He was keen to go to the maison de rendez-vous in Paris – it was not a crude bordello – and take girls out, but he was not accepting of uncommitted sex. He strongly disapproved of lewd conversation (although bawdy songs to some degree were permitted in the mess); there should be commitment in a relationship with a woman, but in the short term, that was incompatible with their work. It is well illustrated.
Anne Hetherington was an attractive young driver in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY); her duties included driving SOE agents to the airfield from where they were due to leave to parachute into occupied Europe. In the course of her work she got to know both Mike Sadler and Mayne; and soon she became Mike’s girlfriend. One afternoon, Mayne, Sadler and Anne were in the Brevet Club in London when a row developed between Mayne and Anne – it was a stormy session that ended with Mike and Anne going their way and Mayne his. London in wartime was a surprisingly small place for off-duty members of the same unit, and that evening Mike and Anne went to a cabaret club; later, Mayne came in and, to their embarrassment, ‘he was escorted to our table, because that was the only place where there was a seat left.’ However, the evening did not turn out to be a disaster. Reflecting on the row, Sadler said:
Paddy liked her very much; he had good regard for her. I think he might have suffered from jealousy as well because she was not attached to him in any way, but she was somewhat attached to me. They had one or two rows – I don’t know why – because she liked him and he liked her.15
Fifty-seven years after the event – when Sadler discussed it with her – Anne could not recall the incident at the Brevet Club, but she said that after the war May
ne had met her on several occasions. So Sadler concluded, ‘It may have been jealousy that caused the row in the Brevet Club those years before.’16 Sadler then told Anne of a time in Chelmsford when Mayne objected to having women in the mess: ‘We had this party in the mess; it was going well; he had been drinking and then in the middle of the night he ordered the women out.’17 And this did remind Anne that Mayne had told her that, in his view, members of the unit should not be committed; Sadler, too, recalled discussing this topic with Mayne.
But in January 1945, Mayne and his officers began to anticipate a role for the unit in the Far East. It was assumed that no matter what capacity they were used in in Norway, the war in Europe would finish quite soon, but that the conflict with Japan would continue for some time. Mayne endeavoured to meet Bernard Ferguson, who had been with Wingate and the Chindits and whose book Across the Chindwin was about to be published. Lt Col Ian Collins, who was at Headquarters 1st Airborne Division, and whom Mayne had worked with during the Commando Brigade days, was a member of the family who owned Collins, the publisher. On 9 February, Ian Collins wrote to Mayne that he was sending him an advance copy of Ferguson’s book, which he thought Mayne would find interesting, and wondered if the two had met yet. But then Collins’ letter went on to show the extent of research that they were undertaking. He believed that Hodder and Stoughton had published a very good book on the Gobi Desert; it was out of print, but he was trying to get some copies. Then his own company had published two books on China, Through China’s Wall, by Graham Peck, and Dawn Watch in China, by Joy Horner. Both were out of print but he hoped to get a file copy of each; since they were file copies, he wanted them back. Finally, he hoped to receive an official signal from Supreme Allied Command South-east Asia that weekend.18 Sadler recalled those early ideas about operating in the Gobi Desert.