Gentleman Jim was ‘quiet but deadly’

Jim Almonds, a founding member of the SAS, earned the moniker Gentleman Jim for his manners. As he is delivered to life in BBC drama SAS Rogue Heroes, BBC Information discovers extra in regards to the man who wreaked havoc behind enemy traces.

“My father was quiet,” displays Lorna Almonds-Windmill. “However lethal when crucial.”

The exploits of Jim Almonds function prominently within the tv collection created by Steven Knight, with the quiet man being portrayed by Corin Silva.

Almonds’ service noticed him earn the Navy Medal, with bar, for his bravery and he twice escaped from Italian prisoner of struggle camps.

However in distinction to the carnage he induced throughout battle, Almonds hailed from the peaceable Lincolnshire village of Stixwould, close to Woodhall Spa, and the Gentleman Jim nickname was coined by his fellow SAS originals.

“I as soon as requested somebody who served alongside my father how he had come by that title,” says Ms Almonds-Windmill, who has penned books charting his tales of derring-do.

“I used to be informed it was as a result of he did not swear and to cite them, ‘did not shout the percentages’ like the remainder. My father additionally by no means boasted about what he did. He was additionally a person of religion.

“He was a real gentleman.”

Ms Almonds-Windmill is eager to shine additional mild on her father; one of many key characters within the collection.

He was born in 1914.

On his 18th birthday, Almonds cycled from Stixwould to Lincoln, the place he joined the Coldstream Guards. He served from 1932 to 1936, earlier than leaving to hitch the police in Bristol.

Nonetheless, on the outbreak of struggle in 1939 he was recalled again to his outdated unit and given the rank of sergeant.

“My father was adamant that he did not need to spend the struggle sprucing brass,” chuckles Ms Almonds-Windmill.

To that finish, he put himself ahead for No. 8 (Guards) Commando.

Ms Almonds-Windmill says her father was the one one of many SAS originals who saved a diary all through the struggle.

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

Ms Almonds-Windmill provides: “We expect his few years with the police influenced this determination to maintain a contemporaneous file of occasions. He left faculty at 14, however his recollections are superbly written.”

Poignantly, on the entrance of the diary is an instruction to ship it on to his spouse ought to he be killed.

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

The pair parked their lorry, captured from the Italians, subsequent to a row of enemy autos.

“They labored quick, on foot, planting bombs on all of the autos,” says Ms Almonds-Windmill. “On a regular basis, German and Italian transport pulled out and in of the automobile park.

“They [Almonds and Lewes] took cowl because the bombs went off whereas the enemy fled into the fort, clearly considering that a big pressure was attacking them.”

Just some weeks later, on New Yr’s Eve, Almonds performed a key function within the assault on Nofelia airfield within the Western Desert, which helped earn him his Navy Medal.

In that raid, Lewes, who was additionally portrayed within the TV collection, was killed when their automobile was attacked by a Messerschmitt 110 (Me 110) fighter bomber.

“They scattered from the truck however Lewes lingered,” says Ms Amonds-Windmill, who devotes a chapter to the incident in her e book Gentleman Jim: The Wartime Story of a Founding father of the SAS and Particular Forces.

“Almonds grabbed a Bren gun, ammo and water and he and two males raced for a head-height rock,” she says. “Almonds fired on the Me 110, revealing their presence and so they performed a lethal ‘ring a hoop of roses’ across the rock, being shot at by the enemy.

“However Almonds obtained the plane’s gunner and it flew off. He then discovered extra males, cannibalised [damaged vehicles] to make one roadworthy automobile and obtained all of the survivors again to base.”

Almonds gained his Navy Medal for his half in a raid on an Italian outpost within the Western Desert. A bar was added for one in every of two daring escapes from Italian prisoner of struggle camps, throughout which he mapped an enemy minefield, saving Allied lives.

Throughout one of many escapes, he customary a rope constituted of string used to safe Purple Cross parcels that have been despatched to prisoners.

“He obtained a job unpacking the parcels, which enabled him to avoid wasting bits of string,” says Ms Almonds-Windmill. “He knew his knots, from his time rising up in Lincolnshire.”

Ms Almonds-Windmill, who herself served as a captain within the Royal Corps of Indicators, says she is having fun with the second collection of SAS Rogue Heroes, at the moment screening on BBC 1 and iPlayer.

“Stephen Knight has an excellent approach of entering into the heads of the lads,” she says. “The atmospherics are superb, displaying the hazard my father and others have been in.”

Silva, who performs her father, bears an “uncanny resemblance” to him, she says.

“I exchanged emails with Corin wherein I informed him about my father and his mannerisms. He is obtained my father’s stance right down to a tee. It was superb casting.

“Corin even sounds a bit like my father, who regardless of being 6ft 4in (1.9m) did not have a loud, deep voice, as you might need anticipated.”

Almonds was troop sergeant to Paddy Mayne, portrayed within the TV collection as a charismatic however risky officer liable to outbursts.

“It was hoped my father can be a relaxing affect to Paddy,” says Ms Almonds-Windmill, although she thinks the portrayal of Mayne’s “wildness” within the TV collection is a “little excessive”.

After the struggle, Almonds left the navy however the pull of abroad journey proved too alluring.

“My mom needed him to have a quiet life,” says Ms Almonds-Windmill. “However that was not my father. He went again into motion, preventing bandits within the Horn of Africa.”

In 1953, he re-joined the SAS, this time battling Communist troopers in jungles throughout the Malayan Emergency.

After thus, he went to Ghana the place he constructed the boat he designed in his thoughts’s eye throughout his captivity. He sailed it again to the UK.

Nonetheless, the march of time finally compelled him to undertake a quieter life. Almonds returned to Stixwould, the place he spent his last days in the identical home the place he was born.

He died, aged 91, in 2005 at Lincoln County Hospital.

Ms Almonds-Windmill displays on his legacy.

Recalling a dialog she had with David Stirling, the founding father of the SAS, she says: “He informed me, ‘your father set the usual’.

“David informed me he thought it was a bit unfair on the others who got here after him as a result of he was that good – his health, endurance and his character.”

The ultimate episode of SAS Rogue Heroes could be seen on BBC1 on Sunday at 21:00 GMT. All episodes are additionally out there now on BBC iPlayer.

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