Born in the County Down town of Newtownards, Mayne attended Regent House Grammar School. It was here that his talent for Rugby Union became evident, playing for the 1st XV whilst also playing for local Ards RFC team at the age of 16.
He later studied law at Queen’s University, Belfast, qualifying as a solicitor. Whilst at university he took up boxing, becoming Irish Universities Heavyweight Champion.
After gaining six caps for the Irish rugby team, Mayne was selected for the 1938 British Lions Tour of South Africa and played in seventeen of the twenty provincial matches and all three tests.
A Belfast lawyer, he also played international rugby as a lock forward for the British Isles and had been heavyweight boxing champion of the Irish Universities.

His sporting career was cut short by the outbreak of World War II.

He joined No.11 Commando as a Second Lieutenant in 1940 after his infantry battalion, then serving in Scotland, was converted to anti-aircraft artillery. Went out to the Middle East with Layforce and served in the invasion of Syria in June 1941.
11 Commando was landed at the Litani river mouth and captured all its objectives but lost over 100 men killed.
Mayne was mentioned in despatches for his gallantry in action.
However, Mayne’s enormous capacity for drink and violence got him into trouble.
He was under close arrest for punching his CO when Stirling recruited him, saying "This is one commanding officer you never hit and I want your promise on that."
He got it and a legendary partnership was born. Mayne led one of the patrols in the disastrous first operation and was soon leading many of the airfield raids.
On one occasion, when the supply of Lewes bombs had been expended, he disabled an aircraft by ripping out its control panel with his hands. (Lewes bombs were small thermos-shaped incendiary devices, named after their inventor).
Stirling made a mistake when he transferred the newly-promoted Captain to training recruits after the death of Jock Lewes on the last day of 1941.
Mayne hated the job, he wanted to be in action. He even accused Stirling of moving him there so that he could overtake the Ulsterman’s score of aircraft destroyed.
After a few weeks Stirling put Mayne back on operations and Sergeant Major Pat Riley took over administration and training.
When the SAS were equipped with jeeps, Mayne was in his element. Although he enjoyed shooting up German aircraft with the fastfiring Vickers "K" machineguns (stripped from obsolete aircraft), undoubtedly his favourite activity was driving a jeep through the Officer’s Mess after particularly heavy drinking sessions in camp at Kabrit. However there was little time for this as the detachment spent more and more time behind enemy lines.
The first mass jeep raid took place in late July 1942, with eighteen of the vehicles
attacking Sidi Haneish. First they approached the airfield in single file, then fanned out into line abreast formation and opened fire to kill and confuse the enemy guard force. A flare was fired and the jeeps changed formation again, driving onto the airfield itself in columns of two with the first three forming an arrowhead around the navigator’s vehicle. They opened fire again, this time with all 68 machineguns (4 on each jeep), firing at 1200 rounds per minute each, and drove around the airfield. At least forty aircraft were destroyed and one SAS man killed. By the end of the North African campaign the SAS had destroyed over 400 enemy aircraft.
When the regiment was formed, Mayne became a Major and Officer Commanding A Squadron. This sub-unit contained most of the experienced men ; other squadrons were formed but required training before they could become operational. They were back behind enemy lines in October 1942 but could only carry out a few raids before the rapid Allied advance caught up with them.
Mayne then operated from the old LRDG base at Kufra, sending patrols as far west as the Mareth Line, the German/Italian defences in eastern Tunisia. In January 1943 he and his men were sent to Lebanon for a ski course.
B and C Squadrons and some French patrols were now in the desert and the veterans were to be given a break.
The capture of David Stirling caused great confusion. He kept all the current and future plans for the SAS in his head and no-one could really replace him.
Command of the regiment immediately went to the most senior officer, Major Vivian Street, OC B Squadron, but he was inexperienced in SAS operations. Lieutenant Colonel H. J. Cator, once CO of 51 Commando, was appointed, but on 19 March 1943 the 1st SAS Regiment’s 47 officers and 532 other ranks were split into three groups.
The French and a few others joined 2nd SAS ; A and B Squadrons became the Special Raiding Squadron under Mayne (Street had in the meantime been captured) ; and C and D formed the Special Boat Squadron under George Jellicoe.
The SRS had a squadron headquarters and three troops, each of three sections. After training at Azzib in Palestine, the squadron sailed from Suez bound for Sicily in July 1943, 287 strong.
Mayne’s men captured three coastal batteries in the initial landings and later cleared Agusta, but this was not the role they were meant for. In September they went to the "Toe" of Italy with 8th Army, performing jeep-borne reconnaissance in front of the main forces. Their next assignment was to Brigadier Durnford-Slater’s half of the Special Service Brigade now operating in Italy. The SRS together with Nos.3 and 40 (RM) Commandos was to seize the port of Termoli on the Adriatic coast. They landed to the west of the town on 3 October and linked up with the advancing land forces, but soon the Germans launched a ferocious counter-attack.
The British forces suffered serious casualties in holding the town, during several days of heavy fighting. The SRS lost 68 men killed and wounded ; again it had been a misuse of their talents, although it showed that they were capable of carrying out any kind of offensive operation.
Mayne’s squadron sailed for the UK from Algiers in December 1943.
Here it was decided to form an SAS Brigade and the SRS became the 1st SAS Regiment again, being expanded accordingly, with Mayne as a Lieutenant Colonel to command it.
The other elements were to be 2nd SAS, who arrived a few months later, the French 3rd and 4th SAS, and the Belgian Independent Parachute Squadron(later 5th SAS). The brigade would come under the command of I British Airborne Corps and changed to the maroon beret of the Airborne Forces.
Mayne and some of his veterans didn’t, wearing their beige berets whenever out of sight of the top brass.
After much conflict between the SAS commanders and the Airborne Forces staff (see below), it was decided to use the Brigade in its proper strategic role in the coming invasion of France. A special section was established at I Airborne Corps headquarters to coordinate its operations with those of Special Forces Headquarters (SFHQ), under which came the US Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) and British Special Operations Executive (SOE) efforts in support of the invasion.
Of particular concern were the Jedburgh teams, three-man units whose mission was to liaise with and train the French Resistance. If possible each Jedburgh had one American, one Briton and one Frenchman (supplied by the Gaullist intelligence service, the BCRA), but in practice this was not often achieved. Like the SAS and the OSS Operational Groups (OGs ) they usually operated in uniform.
OGs were similar in many ways to the SAS ; seven of these 34-strong teams were deployed in France from July to September 1944.
They included Frenchmen as well as high proportion of Scandinavian-Americans, for they had originally been intended to operate in Norway.
A Squadron of 1st SAS was the first full squadron into France on 21 June 1944, smaller parties having parachuted in before. Mayne was in soon afterward with a small headquarter patrol, linking up with different squadrons for operations all over Northern France.
Squadrons established bases in woods and forests, having either parachuted in with their jeeps or infiltrated through German lines.
They sometimes did so in cooperation with the local resistance, though the SAS found many resistance groups to be unreliable. From these bases attacks were launched on the German lines of communication, such as the mining of roads, destruction of railways and bridges, ambushes on convoys and sometimes raids on logistics centres and concentrations of troops. A typical camp had about fifty men in it, sometimes more. Mayne was behind enemy lines for most of the next four months and personally led many raids. He had a number of close calls, such as the time he and his patrol arrived to hide-up at a farmhouse only to find it occupied by Germans.
A short firefight ensued but like Anders Lassen, Mayne was a fearsome fighting soldier and his skills never let him down. Where the Germans were weak the SAS could establish liberated zones but often they found it harder to hide than in the vast spaces of North Africa. Also unlike in Libya and Tunisia, captured SAS men could expect little mercy- most were executed.
By the winter of 1944 most of 1st SAS had either linked up with the advancing Allied forces or infiltrated back through the German lines by jeep or on foot.
They had killed over a thousand Germans and destroyed a huge amount of equipment, as well as calling in many air strikes. There was little work for them over the winter as the front line stabilised and they were eventually sent back to the UK for a month.
On 7 April 1945 Mayne took B and C Squadrons back to the continent for what was to be the last campaign of the war.
They were to operate in support of the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, then fighting near Meppen in north-west Germany. Mayne’s first task (Operation Howard) was to force a gap in the German lines on the division’s left flank.
The SAS jeeps, although heavily armed and now also partially armoured, were not really suited to this task and soon the column was held up and several men killed. Mayne’s response was to drive his jeep to the head of the column and then right at the enemy with all guns blazing, drawing fire and enabling the pinned-down troops to advance. Soon the two squadrons were making progress, but came under heavy attack again the next day, being well forward of the rest of the division.
They stopped in a forest for the night, having advanced 50km (30 miles) but with
several jeeps being damaged and now under tow.
In the morning German troops began sweeping the forest and Mayne sent forward
five men with Bren guns to engage them. He was a keen photographer so accompanied the Bren gunners carrying only a camera.
Luckily Canadian tanks arrived to take the pressure off the SAS. The rest of the war was spent on similar operations, first with the Canadians and later with a British armoured brigade.
In May 1945 1st SAS went to Norway with the rest of the SAS Brigade, where they had the task of disarming the German troops in the Bergen area. The British SAS regiments were disbanded in the UK in October and Mayne discharged soon afterward.
He had received four Distinguished Service Orders for his incredible courage and leadership under fire.
After a period with the British Antarctic Survey in the Falklands and South Georgia, he returned to his law practice in Newtownards but never really settled back in civilian life.
Paddy Mayne was killed in a car accident in 1955.