by Hamish Ross
Behind that simple statement lies another truth: though not its founder, the unit’s wartime achievements cannot be separated from Mayne’s capabilities and qualities and the impact he had on it. Put another way, if Mayne indeed had transferred to the Far East in 1941, the annals of the wartime SAS – had it even been allowed to continue – would not read as impressively as they do. Instead, Mayne chose well when he accepted Stirling’s offer to join him and lead a troop of L Detachment; he followed his star with enthusiasm, understanding and commitment; he was very much the right man at the right time for the SAS; and ‘Orion looked just like an old friend’.
GLOSSARY
AFV Armoured Firing Vehicle
ALC Assault Landing Craft
ATS Auxiliary Territorial Service: now Women’s Royal Army Corps
bint young woman: army slang, from the Arabic
CO Commanding Officer
DCO Director of Combined Operations
DSO Distinguished Service Order
DZ Drop Zone
FFI Forces françaises de l’intérieur: Free French resistance
FTP Francs-Tireurs et Partisans: the armed wing of the French Communists
GHQ General Headquarters
griff news, reliable information
HLI Highland Light Infantry
LCA Landing Craft Assault: capable of carrying a platoon
LCI Landing Craft Infantry: the largest landing craft that could be beached
LRDG Long Range Desert Group
MC Military Cross
MCR 1 Miniature radio receiver: known as ‘biscuit’ because of its resemblance to a Huntley and Palmers tin
MEF Middle East Forces
MEHQ Middle East Headquarters
MM Military Medal
MO5 Military Operations 5: branch of the War Office
NAAFI Navy, Army and Air Force Institute
NCO Non-commissioned officer
OR Other rank
PCT Parachutist: designation of rank in the SAS that was later changed to Trooper
POW Prisoner of War
PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder
QM Quartermaster
RASC Royal Army Service Corps
Recce reconnaissance
REME Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
RNVR Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
RQSM Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant
RSM Regimental Sergeant Major
RTU Return to Unit
RV Rendezvous
SOE Special Operations Executive
TAC HQ Tactical Headquarters
TSMG Thomson Sub-machine Gun
Wadi valley
WO1 Warrant Officer 1st Class
WRNS Women’s Royal Naval Service
NOTES
CHAPTER ONE
1. The Belfast Telegraph, Thursday 3 May 1944.
2. M. James, Born of the Desert: With the SAS in North Africa (London, Greenhill, 1945).
3. J.F. McLuskey, Parachute Padre: Behind Enemy Lines with the SAS (Stevenage, SPA Books, 1984).
4. E. Keyes, Geoffrey Keyes (London, George Newnes, 1956), p. 170.
5. PRO WO 218/171.
6. V. Cowles, The Phantom Major: The Story of David Stirling and the SAS Regiment (London, The Companion Bookclub, 1958), p. 23.
7. PRO WO 218/171.
8. P. Marrinan, Colonel Paddy (Belfast, The Ulster Press, 1960).
9. R. Bradford and M. Dillon, Rogue Warrior of the SAS (London, John Murray, 1987).
10. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
11. Special Air Service Association, Regimental Gazette No. 30.
12. A. Hoe, David Stirling (London, Warner, 1992), pp. 111–12.
13. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
14. Ibid.
15. The Sunday Telegraph, 23 March, 30 March, 6 April 2003.
16. SAS Signals Log.
17. SAS Signals Log, Operation Howard.
18. A. Kemp, The SAS at War 1941–1945 (London, Penguin, 1998), p. xiii.
19. Cowles, The Phantom Major, p. 7.
20. Bradford and Dillon, Rogue Warrior, p. 41.
CHAPTER TWO
1. Mayne family papers.
2. S. McClean, The Real Warrior (Blair Mayne Association, 1997).
3. G. Mortimer, Fields of Glory: The Extraordinary Lives of 16 Warrior Sportsmen, p. 248.
4. Newtownards Chronicle, 27 August 1938.
5. Mayne family papers.
6. Ibid.
7. W.L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Nationwide, 1980), p. 423.
8. Newtownards Chronicle, 12 November 1938.
9. Mayne family papers.
10. Ibid.
11. The Northern Whig, February 1939.
12. McClean, Real Warrior.
13. Mortimer, Fields of Glory, p. 248.
14. Mayne family papers.
15. James, Born of the Desert, p. 314.
16. Sadler interview.
17. James, Born of the Desert, p. 315.
18. Hoe, David Stirling, p. 264.
19. Doyle, in Marianne Elliot, The Catholics of Ulster: A History (London, ALlen Lane, 2000), p. 338.
20. R. Farran in N. Morgan, Daggers Drawn, Real Heroes of the SAS and SBS (Stroud, Sutton, 2000).
21. McLuskey interview.
22. Mayne family papers.
23. Bradford and Dillon, Rogue Warrior, p. 11.
24. Mayne family papers.
25. Ibid.
CHAPTER THREE
1. P. Young, Commando, (London, Pan, 1074) p. 10.
2. D. Reitz, Commando (London, Penguin, 1948), p. 25.
3. E. Muir, Scottish Journey (Edinburgh, Mainstream, 1979), p. 42.
4. Mayne family papers.
5. H.St.G. Saunders, The Green Beret: The Story of the Commandos 1940–45 (Michael Joseph, 1949), p. 28.
6. Storie interview.
7. Macpherson interview.
8. Keyes, Keyes, p. 135.
9. L.B. Oatts, Proud Heritage: The Story of the Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow, The House of Grant, 1963), p. 82.
10. Ibid., pp. 81–2.
11. Harmar interview.
12. Macpherson interview.
13. Keyes, Keyes, p. 137.
14. Macpherson interview.
15. A.G. Lappin, ‘Black Hackle: The Story of 11th (Scottish) Commando (1996, unpublished), p. 4.
16. Mayne family papers.
17. Macpherson interview.
18. Mayne family papers.
19. Ibid.
20. M.J. Beckett, ‘A Critical Appraisal of the Formation, Role and Initial Effectiveness of the Army Commandos between 1940 and 1942’ (unpublished MA Dissertation, University College Chester, 1999), p. 29.
21. Keyes, Keyes, p. 147.
22. Macpherson interview.
23. Keyes, Keyes, p. 146.
24. D. Fraser, Knight’s Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (London, Cassell, 1993).
25. Isle of Arran Heritage Museum.
26. Wynter, PRO Publication, pp. 259–60.
27. Ibid., pp. 259–60.
28. Macpherson interview.
29. Harmar interview.
30. Storie interview.
31. M. Davie (ed.), The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh (London, Phoenix, 1995), p. 496.
32. Mayne family papers.
33. C. Eade (ed.), The Unrelenting Struggle: War Speeches by the Right Hon. Winston S. Churchill (London, Cassell), p. 165.
34. PRO WO 218/171.
35. Ibid.
36. M. Ferro, Pétain (Paris, Fayard, 1987).
37. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 263.
38. PRO WO 218/171.
39. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 268.
40. PRO WO 218/171.
41. R. Neillands, The Raiders: The Army Commandos 1940–1946 (London, Fontana, 1990), p. 86.
42. Mayne family papers.
43. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 268.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Mayne family
papers.
47. Ibid.
48. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 268.
49. Mayne family papers.
50. PRO WO 218/171.
51. Macpherson interview.
52. PRO WO 218/171.
53. Ibid.
54. Macpherson interview.
55. Ibid.
56. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 275.
57. Keyes, Keyes, p. 185.
58. Ibid., p. 184.
59. Macpherson interview.
60. Mayne family papers.
61. Macpherson interview.
62. Isle of Arran Heritage Museum.
63. PRO WO 218/171.
64. Mayne family papers.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. Macpherson interview.
68. PRO WO 218/171.
69. PRO WO 193/384 (quoted in Beckett, p. 44).
70. Keyes, Keyes, p. 184.
71. PRO WO 218/171.
72. PRO CAB 106/389.
73. Mayne family papers.
74. Wynter, PRO Publication, pp. 268–9.
75. Keyes, Keyes, p. 184.
76. Ibid., p. 187.
77. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. Mayne family papers.
2. Ibid.
3. Anderson, Preface in J. Hay, On Big Flowery Hill (Two Rivers Press, 2000).
4. M. Calvert in W. Noonan, Lost Legion, Mission 204 and the Reluctant Dragon (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1987), p. x.
5. W. Noonan, Lost Legion: Mission 204 and the Reluctant Dragon (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1987), pp. 2–5.
6. PRO WO 218/171/2.
7. Hoe, David Stirling, p. 71.
8. Ibid, pp. 71–2.
9. Keyes, Keyes, p. 182.
10. PRO DEFE 2/55.
11. Mayne family papers.
12. Macpherson interview.
13. PRO PREM 3/330/9 quoted in Messenger, p. 110.
14. PRO WO 218/171.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Cowles, Phantom Major, pp. 22–3.
18. Macpherson interview.
19. J. Lewes, Jock Lewes: Co-Founder of the SAS (Barnsley, Pen and Sword, 2000), pp. 194–6.
20. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 303.
21. Marrinan, Colonel Paddy, p. 21.
22. Bradford and Dillon, Rogue Warrior, p. 24.
23. Keyes, Keyes, p. 193.
24. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
25. Mayne family papers.
26. Storie interview.
27. Hay, Big Flowery Hill, Introduction.
28. Keyes, Keyes, p. 191.
29. Wynter, PRO Publication, pp. 305–6.
30. Mayne family papers.
31. Hoe, David Stirling, pp. 93–4.
32. Lewes, Jock Lewes, p. 224.
33. Keyes, Keyes, p. 208.
34. Hoe, David Stirling, p. 95.
35. Mayne family papers.
36. Storie interview.
37. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
38. Mayne family papers.
39. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 282.
40. Fraser, Knight’s Cross, p. 277.
41. L. Almonds Windmill, Gentleman Jim: The Wartime Story of a Founder of the SAS (London, Constable, 2001), pp. 80–1.
42. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
43. Ibid.
44. James, Born of the Desert, p. 297.
45. Mayne family papers.
46. Ibid.
47. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
48. J.V. Byrne, The General Salutes a Soldier (London, Robert Hale, 1986), p. 37.
49. Mayne family papers.
50. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 136.
51. McLuskey interview.
52. Mayne family papers.
53. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 320.
54. Ibid., p. 152.
55. Storie interview.
56. Mayne family papers.
57. Storie interview.
58. Macpherson interview.
59. Sadler interview.
60. Ibid.
61. James, Born of the Desert, pp. 80–1.
62. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 322.
63. Ibid., p. 323.
64. James, Born of the Desert, p. 113.
65. Cowles, The Phantom Major, pp. 173–4.
66. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 329.
67. Storie interview.
68. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 331.
69. Ibid., p. 335.
70. Cowles, The Phantom Major, pp. 227–8.
71. Wynter, PRO Publication, pp. 336–7.
72. Ibid., p. 339.
73. Kemp, SAS at War, p. 75.
74. Mayne family papers.
75. Storie interview.
76. PRO WO 218/97.
77. Bradford and Dillon, Rogue Warrior, p. 69.
78. Kemp, SAS at War, p. 87.
79. F. Gillard, ‘The Middle East Years’ in L. Miall (ed.), Richard Dimbleby Broadcaster, pp. 29–31 (London, BBC Publications, 1996), p. 30.
80. Ibid., p. 30.
81. War Office, The Eighth Army, September 1941 to January 1943, pp. 29–30.
82. Bradford and Dillon, Rogue Warrior, the Foreward.
83. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 38.
84. Ibid., p. 115.
85. James, Born of the Desert, p. 51.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
2. Mountbatten Papers MB1/C122/5.
3. Ibid.
4. PRO WO 169/8271.
5. PRO WO 218/97.
6. Bradford and Dillon, Rogue Warrior, p. 68.
7. Keyes, Keyes, p. 189.
8. PRO WO 169/8271.
9. PRO WO 218/97.
10. Ibid.
11. Davie, Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, p. 493.
12. Macpherson interview.
13. Marrinan, Colonel Paddy, p. 104.
14. Bradford and Dillon, Rogue Warrior, p. 70.
15. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
16. Davie, Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, p. 517.
17. Mayne family papers.
18. J. North (ed.), The Alexander Memoirs 1940–1945 (London, Cassell, 1962), p. 164.
19. Ibid., p. 106.
20. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
21. Wynter, PRO Publication, p. 385.
22. Saunders, Green Beret, p. 141.
23. Ibid., p. 153.
24. PRO WO 218/99.
25. Ibid.
26. Saunders, Green Beret, p. 152.
27. PRO WO 218/99.
28. Ibid.
29. PRO DEFE 2/55 Quoted in C. Messenger, Commandos 1940–46 (London, William Kimber, 1985), pp. 194–5.
30. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
31. Ibid.
32. PRO WO 218/99.
33. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
34. D. Buxton, Honour to the Airborne Part 2 (Solihull, Elmdon Publishing), p. 6.
35. Saunders, Green Beret, p. 170.
36. Ibid., p. 170.
37. Kemp, SAS at War, p. 91.
38. Mayne family papers.
39. J. Durnford-Slater, Commando: Memoirs of a Fighting Commando in World War Two (London, Greenhill, 1953; repr. 2002), pp. 150, 153.
40. Ibid., p. 153.
41. PRO DEFE 2/55.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. PRO WO 218/99.
45. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
46. PRO WO 218/99.
47. Ibid.
48. Durnford-Slater, Commando, p. 154.
49. Mayne family papers.
50. Saunders, Green Beret, p. 170.
51. Durnford-Slater, Commando, p. 161.
52. Saunders, Green Beret, p. 195.
53. Durnford-Slater, Commando, p. 163.
54. Ibid., p. 164.
55. James, Born of the Desert, p. 319.
56. Saunders, Green Beret, p. 197.
57. Farran, Winged Dagger: Adventures on Special Service (London, Cassell, 1948; repr. 1998), p. 200.
58. Durnfo
rd-Slater, Commando, p. 166.
59. PRO WO 218/99.
60. Durnford-Slater, Commando, p. 167.
61. Saunders, Green Beret, p. 198.
62. Durnford-Slater, Commando, pp. 167–8.
63. Ibid., pp. 168–9.
64. PRO WO 218/99.
65. Ibid.
66. Mayne family papers.
67. James, Born of the Desert, p. 315.
68. Mayne family papers.
69. Shirer, Rise and Fall, p. 955.
70. Durnford-Slater, Commando, p. 163.
71. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
72. North, Alexander Memoirs, p. 171.
73. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
74. James, Born of the Desert, pp. 318–19.
75. Ibid., p. 319.
76. Ibid., p. 319.
77. Mayne family papers.
78. Blair Mayne Association.
79. Davie, Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, p. 550.
80. James, Born of the Desert, p. 319.
CHAPTER SIX
1. Mayne family papers.
2. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
3. Mayne family papers.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Storie Interview.
7. Close Interview.
8. McLuskey interview.
9. Mayne family papers.
10. Almonds Windmill, Gentleman Jim, p. 199.
11. James, Born of the Desert, p. 319.
12. Mayne family papers.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Fforde correspondence.
18. Fforde interview.
19. Durnford-Slater, Commando, p. 154.
20. Mayne family papers.
21. Ibid.
22. Close correspondence.
23. D. Harrison, These Men Are Dangerous (London, Cassell, 1957), p. 113.
24. ‘Paddy Mayne Diary’.
25. Mayne family papers.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Wynter, PRO Publication, pp. 308–10.
30. Sadler interview.
31. Smith correspondence.
32. T.B.H. Ottway, Airborne Forces (London, Imperial War Museum, 1990), p. 236.
33. P. Marnham, The Death of Jean Moulin: Biography of a Ghost (London, Pimlico, 2001), p. 113.
34. PRO WO 218/193.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Marnham, Death of Jean Moulin, p. 208.
38. PRO WO 218/193.
39. Sadler interview.
40. PRO WO 218/193.
41. P. McCue, SAS Operation Bulbasket: Behind the Lines in Occupied France (London, Leo Cooper, 1996), p. 75.