After seeing action in Syria with the Commandos, ‘Paddy’ Mayne joined the new unit that David Stirling was establishing, the Special Air Service. The raids Mayne led in the Western Desert destroyed over 100 enemy aircraft on the ground. Hamish Ross seeks to refute negative interpretations of Mayne’s life using official war diaries, the early chronicle of 1 SAS, Mayne’s papers and diaries and a number of extended interviews with key contemporaries.