Orders, Decorations and Medals

‘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 Stirling’s esteem’

Alan Hoe in David Stirling: The Authorised Biography of the Creator of the S.A.S. (Little, Brown and Company (U.K.) Ltd., 1992)

‘Jim Almonds always ran to the battle. He chose to operate behind enemy lines during the siege of Tobruk. He went forward for David Stirling and drove straight at the enemy with all guns blazing during the raid on Benghazi. After escaping twice from an Italian prisoner-of-war camp, he risked his own life while still in enemy territory to reconnoitre an enemy minefield, no doubt saving many Allied lives later. On arrival in England, he insisted on returning to the S.A.S. so that he could parachute into enemy territory in France.’

The late Earl (George) Jellicoe, from his foreword to Gentleman Jim, The Wartime Story of a Founder of the S.A.S., by Lorna Almonds Windmill (Constable & Robinson, 2001)

The highly important Second World War M.M. and Bar, French Croix de Guerre group of nine awarded to Major J. E. “Gentleman Jim” Almonds, a member of the “Tobruk Four”, whose tactics were later adopted by David Stirling’s nascent S.A.S. - indeed few could claim greater title to being a founder member of ‘L’ Detachment, Almonds actually having built the famous parachute course at Kabrit: subsequently present in the attack on Sidi Haneish airfield - among many other notable ‘L’ Detachment actions - he was towed around Benghazi in a cart, shackled, with a loaded gun to his head, on his capture in September 1942, but escaped in Italy in time to be parachuted into France in June 1944 as part of “Operation Gain”, where, having driven unnoticed through a German convoy, he wrought havoc on enemy communications in Forest of Orleans and survived a heated interview with General Patton (“If you’re Brits you’ll be O.K. If not, you’ll be shot”): he was shortly thereafter commissioned at Paddy Mayne’s insistence on the steps of Montgomery’s famous caravan

Military Medal, G.VI.R., with Second Award Bar (2655648 Sjt. J. E. Almonds, S. Gds.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Malaya, G.VI.R. (Capt. J. E. Almonds, M.M., Glosters); French Croix de Guerre 1939, with star riband fitment, mounted as worn from two separate wearing bars, contact marks, generally good very fine and extremely rare (9) £40,000-50,000

Just six members of the S.A.S. would appear to have been awarded the M.M., and Bar in the 1939-45 War.

M.M. London Gazette 26 November 1942. David Stirling’s original recommendation for an immediate award states:

‘This N.C.O. has at all times and under the most testing conditions shown great powers of leadership. After a raid on Nofilia aerodrome, he took command of his party after his officer had been killed. He showed great resource in managing to extricate this party with only one casualty, although all but one of his trucks had been destroyed. On another raid in the Agheila area, he led a party which destroyed five heavy enemy M.T. and he participated in shooting up an enemy post in this locality (It is requested that details of these operations should not be published owing to their secrecy).’

Bar to M.M. London Gazette 27 April 1944. The original recommendation states:

‘Captured at Benghazi on 14 September 1942, this N.C.O. was first taken to Campo 51 (Altamura). While here Almonds and three others, on 4 February 1943, bribed an Italian officer and sentry with coffee and remained working in the Red Cross hut till it was dark. The officer was decoyed by one P.O.W. and the others then overpowered the sentry and gagged him. Almonds had a map stolen from a R.C. priest’s Bible, and had constructed a compass. The four P.O.Ws travelled over the hills by night through bad and rainy weather and reached the coast after 12 days. They could find no boat of any kind, were too weak to travel further and were therefore forced to give themselves up. At the time of the Armistice, Almonds was in Campo 70 (Monturano) and was sent out by the S.B.O. to watch the coast road. While out he was told by an Italian that the Germans had taken over the camp. He therefore made good his escape and set out westwards. He contacted American forces on 14 October 1942.’

French Croix de Guerre Military Governor of Paris’ General Order No. 229, dated 12 March 1945:

‘Squadron Sergeant-Major (now war substantive Lieutenant) James Almonds, S.A.S., head of a section, parachuted with his men on the night of 16-17 June 1944, 300 kilometres behind enemy lines. Wounded on landing, he insisted on remaining in command and with his section ensured the destruction of all communication routes useful to the enemy. On 1 August 1944, despite being attacked by the enemy, he demonstrated magnificent personal courage and the indisputable qualities of a leader. Without any losses, he redeployed his unit and with no concern for the danger involved, led an attack on the Germans. He then returned alone to his old base headquarters to destroy his codebook and other secret documents. He did not cease during his mission to set a magnificent example to his men.’

John Edward “Gentleman Jim” Almonds was born at Stixwould, Lincolnshire on 6 August 1914, the son of a smallholder whose family had lost their farm due to foot and mouth disease. He joined the Coldstream Guards on his eighteenth birthday in 1932, soldiered at the Tower of London and guarded the traitor Norman Baillie-Stewart, incarcerated for passing military secrets to his lover - a German army officer’s wife. Almonds had no nickname. But if anyone called out “John”, half the barrack room stood up, so he volunteered to be called “Jim”.

‘L’ Detachment 1st S.A.S. – North Africa – founding of the S.A.S.

In June 1940, Almonds volunteered for “Lay Force” and No. 8 Guards Commando, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Laycock. As they set sail on 31 January 1941, on the newly refurbished L.S.I. H.M.S. Glenroy - also carrying David Stirling, Randolph Churchill, George Jellicoe and Evelyn Waugh - Almonds began the detailed daily diary he was to keep through the siege of Tobruk, the founding of the S.A.S. and the early raids in the Western Desert.

At sea off the North African coast in the Insect-class gunboat Aphis, Almonds and others were dive-bombed by enemy Stuka aircraft. With 8 Commando, he took up position on the western side of besieged Tobruk facing Derna and Gazala. With Jock Lewes, Jim Blakeney and Pat Riley, Almonds reconnoitred enemy positions in no-man’s land at night, developing the four-man tactics that would later be carried into the S.A.S. A night attack on an enemy salient as recorded by him led to the usual thump of mortars and whine of shelling becoming more intense. Suddenly the enemy let fly with everything it had. The earth and air trembled and rocked to the concussion of bursting shells and mortar bombs, some of which exploded a few feet from their position. Almonds threw himself behind a low stone wall as a bomb burst on the other side.

Stirling invited Jock Lewes together with the “Tobruk Four”, which included Bob Lilley, into ‘L’ Detachment on the basis of their reputation describing them as ‘pure gold dust’. Arriving at Kabrit in the Canal Zone on 5 September 1941, Almonds noted in his diary:

‘In camp and now belong to Special Air Service. Started training for a few operations to be carried out in enemy territory. To be dropped by parachute.’

Unusually for the S.A.S., Almonds kept his war-time diary chronicling details of the early raids, the experimentation behind them and their hazardous parachute and endurance training. He escaped death no less than nine times, not counting the many occasions when he came under normal enemy fire and the dangers of S.A.S. training itself, during which he practiced parachute landing by rolling from the back of a truck at speeds of up to thirty miles per hour. On 6 October 1941, he recorded in his diary:

‘Afternoon spent jumping backwards from a lorry at twenty-five miles per hour. Three broken arms and a number of other casualties. Broken bones through training now six.’

On 17 October, he noted:

‘Plane arrived again. More parachute descents. Decided with plane fittings [sic]. Two of the boys killed. Chutes never had a chance to open. Brought them back across the Canal by boat.’

He made his first parachute jump the following day.

When Paddy Blair Mayne (later D.S.O. and three Bars) joined the clandestine unit at Kabrit, Almonds became his Troop Sergeant.

S.A.S. raids in the Western Desert

On 14 December, Almonds and Lewes carried out a successful ‘beat up’ on the main Tripoli coastal road. Arriving at Mersa Brega, they spotted the lights of a large road house and fort used as an enemy staging post. They pulled in and parked their captured Lancia lorry among the Italian and German trucks. They placed bombs on the parked enemy vehicles while under fire from inside the fort, destroying several enemy transport and suffering not a scratch.

In late 1941, Almonds took part in a raid on Nofelia aerodrome, successful apart from the fact that in it Jock Lewes was killed. Almonds was machine-gunned from the air while lying motionless on the sand. While evading the enemy, he played ‘ring a ring o’ roses’ round a rock with an enemy Messerschmitt 110 aircraft shooting at him and a member of the New Zealand Long Range Desert Group. He recorded a full account of the action in his diary, concluding on 31 December 1941 with homage to Lewes:

’Yes, in many homes the Old Year is being watched die and new hopes rise with the prospect of the New Year ... I thought of Jock, one of the bravest men I have ever met, an officer and a gentleman, lying out in the desert barely covered with sand. No one will ever stop by his grave or pay homage to a brave heart that has ceased to beat. Not even a stone marks the spot.’

Stirling recommended Almonds for an immediate Military Medal.

Not long afterwards, Almonds learned that his twenty year-old wife had discharged their son from the Bristol Royal Infirmary, where he was receiving no treatment and was expected to die. The doctors said he would ‘always be a weakling’ but he quickly recovered at home and later went on to pass the S.A.S. selection and command one of the S.A.S. Squadrons at Hereford.

During a raid on Sidi Barrani in North Africa, ‘Gentleman Jim’ and his section ran out of water. They went for three days in the desert with no expectation of finding any, during which normal discipline continued as they eked out a teaspoonful of water a day each. Against all the odds, they then found water at an abandoned supply dump.

Stirling recognised that Almonds was also a naturally gifted engineer and soon had him building an extensive parachute training rig from ‘spares’ and parts pilfered from Royal Engineers dumps and using prisoner-of-war labour. He did it because, as he said, “it was impossible to say no to David Stirling”, such was his charisma and inspirational leadership. This urgent training need and the fact that Almonds’s baby son was thought to be dying meant that he did not take part in the first major ‘L’ Detachment parachute drops on Gazala and Timimi. He recorded the first hand accounts of the returning men in his diary - twenty-one out of fifty-four:

‘After the massacre is over and the enemy’s planes are blown up, there remains that terrible march back through the desert. No one who is sick or wounded could possibly make it and no one can afford to help. The weight already carried by each man is as much as he can bear ... I am not there. I sit back here in the safety of the camp and wish I were with them. One more would have made the load lighter. A few words of encouragement when hard-pressed go a long way. In action before, when we’ve been up against it, I’ve managed to get a smile or a joke out of them ... Reality beats fiction for sheer, cold calculating courage. Some of these lads cannot be beaten. Films and books of daring and adventure fall far short of this, the real thing ... ’

When the remnant of his comrades returned, he noted:

‘It is difficult to get a story out of these people. They are a tight-lipped lot and never go into detail. But from their appearance ... the last ten days in the desert must have been hell.’

In July 1943, he took part in the raid on Sidi Haneish in enemy territory and then had to drive slowly through a convoy of German soldiers who had arrived to chase the departing S.A.S. In September 1943, against his better judgment, Stirling agreed with staff officers to mount a large raid on Benghazi. This was hardly in the style of the S.A.S. They were late reaching the target and the enemy was expecting them. Mike Sadler, the famed L.R.D.G. navigator, watched as Stirling beckoned Almonds in his jeep up to the front. Almonds immediately drove it, packed full of explosives, straight at the enemy with all guns blazing. All hell let loose and the S.A.S. retreated. But Almonds was in a narrow lane and could not turn round. He and his comrade jumped clear just as the jeep blew up.

After a lengthy manhunt, Almonds was captured by the Italians and they paraded him round the town in the back of an open truck, his hands manacled to an ankle and a loaded gun to his head. He withstood later interrogation and several attempts at subversion through a planted double agent - an Italian ‘Scotsman’. He then embarked for a second time on a sea voyage without knowing where he was going (the first time having been with 8 Guards Commando en route to the Middle East in January 1941) in the hold of an enemy ship bound for Italy.

After masterminding a successful escape from an Italian P.O.W. camp in February 1943, in a sort of “Empire” effort, Almonds led a group of four, including an Australian, a New Zealander and a South African, towards the south coast. He called this “The Italian Picnic”. But winter weather can be bitter in Italy: it sleeted during the thirteen days they were ‘at large’ and the Australian developed pneumonia. All except Almonds were wearing cardboard-soled Italian boots and when they burned the bottoms out of them by a camp fire it was the last straw. They decided to give themselves up and get the Aussie to some medical attention. As the ringleader, Almonds was told he would be executed but instead was taken further north to another P.O.W. camp at Ancona and placed in solitary confinement for seven months. There he exercised his mind by designing in his head and memorizing each night his plans for building a thirty-two foot sailing ketch. Each day he would add to the design and recite the details until they were committed to memory.

His second chance at escape came when the Italian Camp Commandant asked him to go out and reconnoitre the positions of the approaching Germans. Almonds did so, reported in by phone and then since he had not been asked to give his word to return, he walked the length of the Appenines. This time he was alone, which he felt increased his chances of success. He spent thirty-two days behind enemy lines (the Italians had capitulated but the Germans fought on) heading south down the mountains towards the Allies.

He reached the Allies after mapping an enemy minefield on the way. At this point he was taken prisoner by the Americans, who did not believe his incredible story, but eventually handed him over to the British. Stirling had already recommended him for a commission but in the meantime his escape and mapping the enemy minefield had earned him a Bar to his Military Medal.

Raids in support of the D-Day Landings

After successfully reaching England, Almonds was posted to the Prime Minister’s Residence at Chequers, from which, with the help of Paddy Mayne, he ‘escaped’ again to rejoin the S.A.S. who were regrouping and training in Scotland. At this time, some of the human cost of serving with the S.A.S. became apparent as his gaunt appearance and temporary difficulty in readjusting to normal family life manifested itself. Once, out shopping, he turned on his wife and three year-old son, whom he had not seen since he was three months old, and asked them what the hell they were following him for - but fortunately this was only a temporary problem and their marriage survived fifty-seven years until his wife died in 1997.

Almonds was delighted to be back with his comrades and to take part in training the newcomers in preparation for parachuting behind enemy lines in France, and especially to pass on his by now well-practised escape and evasion skills.

In June 1944, Almonds and his section parachuted by night behind enemy lines into the Forest of Orleans. As part of “Operation Gain”, they wreaked havoc among the hard-pressed Germans by blowing up railway lines and bridges, ammunition dumps and generally disrupting essential supply lines. This was “The French Picnic”. Believing that any fool could be uncomfortable, Almonds built a log cabin deep in the forest by notching and lashing saplings together and camouflaging the construction from the air with a dark green parachute. Never one to permit unnecessary violence, he rescued a captured German from death at the hands of the French Maquis, called him Fritz and kept him during their two-month sojourn to do all the housework, cooking and washing up. Jeeps and supplies were dropped by air at night and the local French resistance ably played the game - there was about it all, as Almonds said later, an air of the faintly comical ‘not a million miles away from the B.B.C. T.V. series Hallo, Hallo’. As the U.S. Third Army front line advanced towards the “Operation Gain” party, he judged it right to let Fritz slip away so that he would not be accused of fraternization by his own side. For his contribution, France awarded Almonds the Croix de Guerre with Silver Palm.

During his second mistaken capture by the Americans, Almonds was taken in front of General Patton, who wagged a pearl-handled pistol at him and snarled, “If you’re British, you’ll be okay. If not, you’ll be shot.” Fortunately, he managed to convince the American Liaison Officer that he was British, and after making his way back to England, he was presented to Field Marshal Montgomery, who commissioned him inside his caravan.

After the war, Almonds served in the British Military Mission to Ethiopia and with the Eritrean Police Field Force. He rejoined the S.A.S. when it was reconstituted and commanded ‘B’ Squadron 1st S.A.S. clearing terrorists from the Malayan jungle in 1953 to 1955.

Still a great adventurer, in 1956, while serving with the West African Frontier Force in Ghana, he began building by hand the boat he had designed and memorised while in solitary confinement in the Italian P.O.W. camp. He sailed it back to England in 1961, accompanied by the Chief Regional Office and a young subaltern. He finally resigned his commission after four years in Ghana.

In 2001, his wartime story was published in a book by his daughter, herself ex-Army Captain, Lorna Almonds Windmill. He died in Lincolnshire on 20 August 2005, aged 91. His wife of fifty-seven years died in 1997, survived by his son and twin daughters, all of whom also served in the army. His post-war story is yet to be published.

Sold with the recipient’s original, shrapnel-damaged handwritten wartime diary of over 20,000 words, consisting of daily entries kept by him from 28 January 1941 to 28 March 1942, together with a typed transcript; his S.A.S. berets, one maroon, one sand-coloured, the former most probably as worn by him in the Malaya operations in the 1950s; double-signed (subject and author) first edition copies of the hardback and paperback books of Gentleman Jim, The Wartime Story of a Founder of the S.A.S., by his daughter, Captain Lorna Almonds Windmill, published by Constable & Robinson; and assorted photocopied citations and newspaper obituaries, including those published in the Times, Telegraph and Independent.