Lorna Almonds Windmill - Gentleman Jim: The Wartime Story of a Founder of the SAS and Special Forces

First published in the UK by Constable, an imprint of
Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2001

Published in paperback by Robinson, an imprint of
Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2002

This edition published in 2011 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Lorna Almonds-Windmill 2001, 2002, 2011

9781783032297

The right of Lorna Almonds-Windmill to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Sergeant Gentleman Jim Almonds, one of the Tobruk Four, was in many ways to the desert born. In this environment he was totally at home. He excelled in the velvet darkness and revelled in the vast emptiness of North Africa. His nickname was apt; six feet and four inches tall, his gentle, quiet and considerate manner hid enormous self-discipline and control which left him cool, efficient and deadly when the situation demanded it [He] was held very high in Stirlings esteem.

Alan Hoe in David Stirling: The Authorised Biography of the Creator of the SAS, Little, Brown & Co (UK) Ltd, 1992

We are the Pilgrims, master: we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow
Across that angry or that glimmering sea

excerpt from The Golden Journey to Samarkand (1913) by James Elroy Flecker, inscribed on the clock tower of the barracks as a memorial to their dead, 22 SAS, Stirling Lines, Credenhill, Hereford

An authoritative history of the founding of the SAS
as well as a terrific read. The Spectator

Jim Almonds was one of the great SAS figures of his day and
it is splendid that his daughter has now told his story.
Sir Max Hastings

Exceptionally well researched highly recommended.
Guards Magazine

A remarkable story, told stylishly.
Soldier Magazine

This fine and meticulously researched book captures quite
brilliantly the special spirit of the early SAS.
The 2nd Earl Jellicoe

Lorna Almonds-Windmill has written an exceptionally well researched
and interesting book about her fatherhighly recommended.
Guards Magazine

Incredible true story
Bristol Evening Post

In view of the SASs crucial involvement inside Afghanistan
against the perpetrators of international terrorism, the story of
this extraordinary man and the effect he had, and still has, on our
lives could not be more prescient...Read it and be thrilled.
Lord Hanson

1. Almonds in the Coldstream Guards, Tower of London, 1932

2. Almonds, L Detachment, 1 SAS, Kabrit, 1941

3. Jock Lewes, hand bandaged from desert sores, Kabrit, 1941

4. Three of the Tobruk Four: ( l-r ) Jim Blakeney, Almonds, Bob Lilley, Cairo, 1941

5. Pat Riley, who described Almonds as one of my best pals, Kabrit, 1941

6. SAS training: jumps and rolls from trucks at 30 mph, Kabrit, 1941

7. Paddy Blair Mayne, when still with 11 Commando, The Scottish, at Lamlash, Isle of Arran, 1940

8. Almonds off on one of the first SAS raids, Kabrit, late 1941 the slight lean forward is due to the weight on his back

9. Almonds building Stirlings boat

10. The boat taking shape, Kabrit Point, 1941

11. Almonds ( top right ), with two Italian POWs, building the parachute training rig, Kabrit, 1941

12. The finished parachute training rig Almonds built for Stirling, Kabrit, 1941

13. Survivors of the Nofilia raid: ( back l-r ) Alan Nutt, LRDG, Brown, LRDG (Sensor Box), Snowy McCulloch, LRDG; ( front l-r ) Almonds, Bob Lilley, L Detachment, SAS. Note the early white SAS berets

14. Weapon cleaning before a raid: ( l-r ) ODowd, Rose and Storie who took part in the attack on Nofilia aerodrome

15. Dennis Basset, LRDG, immediately after leading the marathon walk from Jalo. Merlyn Craw said, He looks all in, doesnt he?

16. An LRDG patrol at Howards Cairn, a rare landmark in the Great Sand Sea

17. SAS jeep north of Kufra Oasis

18. David Stirling, south of Marauder, 1942

19. Mike Sadler, England, 1944

20. LRDG truck with anti-tank gun in the Wadi Tamet area

21. The Road Watch: Frank White, NZ LRDG, observes enemy convoys on the Trig el Abd road

22. Merlyn Craw, NZ LRDG, 1942

23. Johann Folscher, British South African Police, a member of the Empire Effort first escape from Italian POW camp, Italy, 1943

24. The ketch Kumasi Almonds designed and memorised in solitary confinement in the Italian POW camp in 1943. He later built her by hand in Ghana and sailed her back to England in 1961

25. Almonds, six months after the Italian picnic, with John, Bristol, spring 1944

26. Paddy Blair Mayne, CO, 1 SAS Regiment, Scotland, spring 1944

27. Georges Poulard, the Frenchman who met Almonds at the DZ France, June 1944

28. The chteau at Chilleurs-aux-Bois where Troopers Ion and Packman were murdered

29. Almonds with Monsieur le garagiste, Antoine Kroutchelnitsky, a member of the French Resistance

30. Almonds at the Vickers-K with his section behind enemy lines in the Forest of Orlans, July 1944

31. Cartoon by Ian Fenwick who was ambushed and killed in the Forest of Orlans on 8 August 1944

32. Almonds, aged 84, visiting the New Zealand SAS in January 1998

The Rt. Hon. The Earl Jellicoe, KBE, DSO, MC, FRS, PC
President of the Special Air Service Regimental Association

I felt greatly honoured to be asked to write the Foreword to this fine book. I read it with interest and pleasure and it has brought back strong memories to me. It is a remarkable human story about a remarkable man. It is a true story of courage, danger, and amazing survival against all the odds. It is also the story of the way the SAS began. This book captures with a refreshing honesty the real spirit of young men at war in a special outfit, wanting to do their best but not knowing quite how to go about it.

The David Stirling whom I served under during the war was without doubt the finest leader of men I have ever known. However, he always insisted that he was not the sole founder of the SAS. There was Paddy Mayne who made his unique contribution in the early days in the Western Desert. There was Georges Berg who brought with him the splendid French Squadron to join the SAS at a crucial time. And there was also, not least, Jock Lewes who, as our author rightly states had done something for the SAS that no other man, not even Stirling could have done, bringing with himself the training practice and philosophy which became the special SAS operational style. Lewes when he joined the Detachment brought with him the Tobruk Four, aptly described by Alan Hoe, Stirlings biographer, as pure gold dust. One of them was Jim Almonds, for a long time the oldest surviving member of the SAS L Detachment originals. He was one of the first twelve men who joined David Stirling when he founded the SAS at Kabrit in early September 1941. Physically tough, with the self discipline and mental strength never to give up whatever the circumstances, he yet showed the personal humility that led to his nickname.