Gentleman Jim was ‘quiet but deadly’

Jim Almonds, a founding member of SAS, was named Gentleman Jim for his manners. As he is brought to life in BBC drama SAS ROGUE HEROES. BBC News discovers more about the man who arranged chaos behind enemy lines.

“My dad was quiet,” Lorna Almonds-Windmill reflects. “But deadly when needed.”

Jim Almond’s holdings are prominent in the TV series created by Steven Knight, where the quiet man is portrayed by Corin Silva.

Almonds’ service caused him to win the military medal, by bare, for his bravery, and he fled twice from Italian prisoners of war.

But unlike the carnage he caused during the conflict, Almonds came from the peaceful Lincolnshire village of Stixwould, near the Woodhall Spa, and gentleman Jim-Kælenavn was invented by his other SAS-Originals.

“I once asked someone who served with my father how he had come to that name,” says Mrs. Almonds-Windmill, who has written books that map his stories about Dering-Do.

“I was told it was because he wasn’t banding and to quote them,” didn’t shout the odds “like the rest. My father never boasted what he did. He was also a believing man.

“He was a true gentleman.”

MS Almonds-Windmill is eager to shed light on his father; One of the protagonists in the series.

He was born in 1914.

On his 18th birthday, Almonds cycled from Stixwould to Lincoln, where he joined Coldstream Guards. He earned from 1932 to 1936 before traveling to join the police in Bristol.

But at the outbreak of war in 1939, he was called back to his old unity and got rank of sergeant.

“My father was steeply that he would not spend the war polishing brass,” Mrs. Almonds-Windmill is chuckling.

To that end, he stood up for No. 8 (Guards) Commando.

MS Almonds-Windmill says her father was the only one of the SAS-Eriginals who led a diary throughout the war.

On September 3, 1941, two years to the day after Britain entered the war, Almonds declared in his diary: “I am now SAS”.

MS Almonds-Windmill adds: “We believe that his few years with the police have influenced this decision to make a simultaneous record of events. He left school as a 14-year-old, but his memories are beautifully written.”

In front of the diary, there is a gripping instruction to pass it on to his wife if he was to be killed.

On December 14, 1941, Almonds and another SAS soldier, Jock Lewes, who would be killed on a later mission, attacked an Italian roadside and a fort at Mersa Brega in Libya.

The couple parked their truck, taken prisoner from the Italians, next to a number of enemy vehicles.

“They worked quickly, on foot, and planted bombs on all the vehicles,” says Mrs. Almonds-Windmill. “All the time, German and Italian transport pulled in and out of the parking lot.

“They (Almonds and Lewes) took cover as the bombs exploded as the enemy fled into the fort, obviously believers that a great force attacked them.”

Just a few weeks later, New Year’s Eve, Almonds played a key role in the attack on the Nofelia airfield in the western desert, which helped give him his military medal.

In the Razzia, Lewes, who was also portrayed in the TV series, was killed when their vehicle was attacked by a Messerschmitt 110 (ME 110) fighter bombs.

“They spread from the truck, but Lewes lingered,” says Mrs. Amonds-Windmill, who dedicates a chapter to the incident in his book Gentleman Jim: The Wartime Story of a Founder of the Sas and Special Forces.

“Mandel grabbed a Bren gun, ammunition and water, and he and two men ran after a stone at head height,” she says. “Mandel shot at the ME 110s and revealed their presence, and they played a deadly ‘ring a ring of roses’ around the cliff where they were shot against the enemy.

“But Almonds got the aircraft’s shooter and it flew off. Then he found several men, cannibalized (damaged vehicles) to make a traffic -capable vehicle and got all the survivors back to the base.”

Almonds won his military medal for his part in a raid on an Italian outpost in the western desert. A bar was added to one of two daring flames from Italian prisoners of war, mapping a hostile minefield and saving the Allies’ lives.

During one of the escape, he made a rope made of leash used to secure Red Cross packages sent to prisoners.

“He got a job of unpacking the packages, which allowed him to save pieces of string,” says Mrs. Almonds-Windmill. “He knew his knots, from his upbringing in Lincolnshire.”

MS Almonds-Windmill, who himself served as captain of the Royal Corps of Signals, says she is enjoying the second series of SAS Rogue Heroes, currently appearing on BBC 1 and IPlayer.

“Stephen Knight has a very good way to get into the heads of the men,” she says. “The mood is very good, which shows the danger my father and others were in.”

Silva, who plays her father, has a “creepy equality” with him, she says.

“I exchanged emails with Corin where I told him about my dad and his manners. He’s got my father’s attitude down to a tee. It was a very good casting.

“Corin even sounds a bit like my father who, despite being 1.9 m, did not have a tall, deep voice that you might have expected.”

Almonds was a troop sergeant for Paddy Mayne, portrayed in the TV series as a charismatic but fleeting officer prone to outbreaks.

“It was hoped that my father would be a soothing influence for Paddy,” says Mrs. Almonds-Windmill, although she thinks the portrayal of Mayne’s “Wildness” in the TV series is a “slightly over the top.”

After the war, Almond’s left the military, but the attraction of overseas adventures turned out to be too attractive.

“My mother wanted him to have a quiet life,” says Mrs. Almonds-Windmill. “But it wasn’t my dad. He went back into action and fought against bandits on the Horn of Africa.”

In 1953 he joined SAS again, this time he fought against communist soldiers in the jungle under Malayan emergency.

Then he traveled to Ghana, where he built the boat he designed in his inner eye during his captivity. He sailed it back to Britain.

But the march of time eventually forced him to take a quieter life. Almonds returned to Stixwould, where he spent his last days in the same house where he was born.

He died, 91 years old, in 2005 at Lincoln County Hospital.

Mrs. Almonds-Windmill reflects on his legacy.

She is reminiscent of a conversation she had with David Stirling, the founder of SAS, and says, “He told me, ‘Your father set the standard’.

“David told me he thought it was a little unfair to the others who came after him because he was so good – his fitness, stamina and his character.”

The last section of SAS Rogue Heroes can be seen on BBC1 on Sunday at. 21:00 GMT. All paragraphs are also available now BBC iPlayer.

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