Rogue Warrior of the SAS: The Blair Mayne Legend.
Author: DILLON, Martin & BRADFORD, Roy.
Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1987. xvii, 254pp + index. Illustrated. Paperback.
Half a century after his death, Lt Col. Robert Blair Mayne is still regarded as one of the greatest soldiers in the history of military special operations. He was the most decorated British soldier of the Second World War, receiving four DSOs, the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d’honneur, and pioneered tactics used today by the SAS and other special operations units worldwide.
Rogue Warrior of the SAS tells the remarkable life story of ‘Colonel Paddy’, who was also one of the most controversial soldiers of his time. Mayne had exceptional physical strength and uniquely swift reflexes, making him a fearsome opponent. He was able to respond to threats of attack with split-second timing and devastating consequences for the enemy. But behind the bravado and the legendary feats was a soldier denied the ultimate accolade of the Victoria Cross because of his unorthodox rules of war and his resentment of authority.
Mayne was also a man with a conflicted personal life. From youth to adulthood his mother dominated his life. While there was talk of a lost love, he never married and several of his contemporaries felt that his resentment of gays in the military reflected his concerns about his own sexuality.
Mayne was undoubtedly a complex character of diametrically opposed qualities and in Rogue Warrior of the SAS the authors have presented a rounded and perceptive portrait of the man. Drawing on personal letters and family papers, SAS secret files and records (now declassified), together with the Official SAS Diary compiled in wartime and eyewitness accounts from many who served with him, the picture emerges of a soldier who, although a flawed hero, was unquestionably one of the most distinctive combatants of the campaigns in the Western Desert and Europe.
ISBN: 1840187239
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