Banging the gong for our bravest

SOMEWHERE on Arran, the walls of a cottage are still bullet-scarred after Blair Mayne – later to command the wartime SAS – got drunk and blazed away with a pistol.

As I mentioned last week, hot-head Mayne played a key role in keeping the Who Dares Wins ethos alive after SAS founder Sir David Stirling was captured.

In Germany in 1945, Mayne was approved for the VC, our premier gallantry decoration, only for it to be mysteriously downgraded. Maybe it was Establishment payback – he once knocked out his commanding officer.

The decision still rankles with SAS veterans, as does the extraordinary lack of a VC for Sergeant Talaiasi Labalaba.

The Fijian died in Mirbat, Oman, in 1972 when a few local troops and nine SAS ‘Blades’ held off hundreds of Communist insurgents. Sergeant Labalaba single-handedly manned a 25pounder artillery gun, normally crewed by six, to lethal effect.

‘He plied it like a shotgun,’ a former SAS officer told me.

No one joins Special Forces for fame, accolades, medals or money.

But since the public expect so much of them, perhaps we should look again at the paucity of SAS VCs, starting with Mayne and Labalaba.

I WAS heartbroken as the New Orleans Saints crashed out of the chase for American football’s Super Bowl on the last throw of the ball from the Minnesota Vikings.

Saints’ kicker Thomas Morstead had played through serious injury, which so impressed Vikings fans that they have raised more than $130,000 for his charity foundation.

Meanwhile football fans here lob fake eyeballs on to the pitch to taunt a rival player who lost an eye.