SAS Daggers Drawn

After D-Day, Paddy Mayne leads SAS operations in occupied France against railway lines, transport, arms depots and German formations moving towards the Allied front. The patrols work with resistance groups but remain vulnerable to betrayal, encirclement and the execution orders applied to captured commandos.

Drawing on Mayne’s diaries and family papers, Lewis follows the raids and the internal strain of prolonged operations behind enemy lines. The final volume of the trilogy examines Mayne’s increasingly difficult relationship with authority as the regiment’s contribution to liberation grows and the war approaches its end.