The quietly spoken, thoughtful, brilliant Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne, four times winner of the Distinguished Service Order and co-founder of the Special Air Service, was nothing like his profane, psychotic, paddywhacking caricature in the cartoonish BBC series SAS: Rogue Heroes. His hideous portrayal does him a grave disservice and has understandably upset his family.
Truth about Mayne the man is now obscured by his outsized myth. As his biographer wrote, his life and formidable achievements have become steadily ‘dramatised and isolated’, a process that started while he was still serving and which has accelerated as the top-secret SAS has morphed into a ‘global entertainment franchise’ – the service has been a source of public fascination since the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege.
Far from cock-up or conspiracy, the reasons for Mayne’s downgrade are more prosaic
Mayne’s legend includes the view that he was unfairly denied the Victoria Cross (VC), Britain’s highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy. Various reasons for this ‘unfair’ downgrading offered by campaigners include Mayne’s reputation for drinking and brawling; his lack of conformity; his Irishness; distaste at his alleged homosexuality; bureaucratic incompetence; or callous indifference by Whitehall pen-pushers based far from the dust and sweat and blood of battle.
On the back of the latest TV series, there have been fresh demands that Mayne now get a VC retrospectively. Former defence ministers have expressed support. SAS-linked historians have let it be known that ‘The Regiment’ in Hereford agrees. While no one would have begrudged such an award in 1945, these modern appeals should be dismissed as they have been in the past.
Medals attract strong emotions. There are always winners and losers. No medal system can be perfect, as Churchill himself acknowledged in 1944, saying that there must ‘be heartburnings and disappointments on the border line’. All governments can do is to try and be fair and avoid the strong temptation to ‘dilute the currency [of medals] through generous motives’. Churchill also noted traditional British parsimony in the award of medals, in comparison to other nations who have awarded them more freely, such as the United States and France, leading to regular accusations of the politicisation of the military honours system.
A rule was instigated here in 1946 that no further recommendations for gallantry awards arising from service during the war would be considered after 1950. This ‘five year’ rule was established to draw a line under a tsunami of late wartime citations and prevent a Pandora’s box of indefinite medal reviews as has now happened in Australia. It has been adhered to since by successive British and Canadian governments.
The passage of time itself is not a valid basis on which to take different decisions. As a government review of military medals in 2012 found: ‘we bring a different set of attitudes and sensitivities to those prevalent when the decisions were taken, cannot know or understand the context in which they were operating at the time, or all the considerations and knowledge they had in their minds’.
The 2012 review held the door open for reviews of previous cases in exceptional circumstances if new evidence came to light that the issue was not properly considered at the time, or significant new information become available, or the original decision was manifestly inconsistent with others.
Mayne’s case fails these tests. Nominated for the VC in April 1945 for showing ‘unsurpassed gallantry’ in rescuing his troops from a German ambush, his citation was considered before being downgraded to an award of a third bar to his Distinguished Service Order (i.e. his fourth award). No evidence of maladministration or conspiracy at the time has been produced.
Far from cock-up or conspiracy, the reasons for Mayne’s downgrade are more prosaic. Criteria for award of medals tightened dramatically during the course of the war to prevent their profusion. By 1945, the bar set for the VC had become so high that it was likely to only be awarded posthumously. His 1945 heroism lacked independent witness testimony from higher-ranking officers, a factor inherent in the clandestine, independent work of the special forces. The historian James Holland detects a ‘wisp of doubt’ in a note accompanying the original citation by Mayne’s immediate superior on the actual strength of the VC recommendation.
Consistent with Churchill’s warning of ‘heartburnings and disappointment’, Mayne was not unique in being downgraded. RAF bomber pilot James Tait won four DSOs after having his own nomination for a VC for ‘sustained gallantry’ downgraded in 1945. The soldier Mike Dauncey in late 1944 was put ‘up for the sixth [Arnhem VC], only to have the letters ‘VC’ crossed out on his citation and amended to ‘DSO’ by… Bernard Law Montgomery… who felt that, heroism or no heroism, five VCs were quite enough for one debacle’. There are many, many examples of those not recommended for VCs but widely considered deserving of one, and of individuals overlooked completely for recognition for their acts of gallantry.
Re-opening the case for Mayne would mean second-guessing the past, blinded by myth and armed with emotion and hindsight. It would leave government exposed to an unending stream of further campaigns by individuals, regiments and politicians for reviews of past medal decisions, both military and civilian. And with many records now destroyed, such reviews would undoubtedly advantage some over others.
The one positive side effect of the current TV series is that people may try and learn more about the modest Mayne who would probably have been mortified by this campaign for a VC. As an Ulster historian wrote when the award was rightly turned down in 2006, ‘his memory would better be respected by letting this campaign come to a dignified end’ and letting him rest in peace.
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