Gentleman Jim: The Wartime Story of a Founder of the SAS and Special Services

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On 6 October 1941, he wrote: “Afternoon spent jumping backwards from a lorry at twenty-five miles per hour. This book recounts post-war unreported military and police operations in those theatres - through the story of one man.

Stirling liked a face to face meeting, possibly with a few key points sketched out on the back of a tobacco packet as an aide mémoir. Set in wartime England, the western desert, Italy, and France, this book captures the spirit of the young soldiers in the newly emerging Special Air Service, against a dramatic background of love, courage, and high-risk adventure. They stopped work, amazed and slightly apprehensive at the sight of a British army officer coming towards them.They travelled together to join Stirling in the Egyptian desert near the Suez Canal in July 1941, among the first recruits to the SAS, known then as L Detachment. This,’ he said to them, ‘is for you, because the Italian people were very kind to me and looked after me when I was an escaping prisoner of war in Italy. After arriving at Mersa Brega, they spotted the lights of a large house and fort used as an enemy staging post. Dating from before the turn of the last century, the sword pommel was a Maria Theresa silver dollar, while the cross-piece was a crusader’s rectangle. A little while later, Stirling asked Almonds if he could build them some parachute training equipment.

Until being admitted to hospital, he had lived in the house in the Lincolnshire village of Stixwould in which he was born. But after helping found the SAS with David Stirling life as a bobby on the beat lacks a certain excitement.Although Layforce fell slowly into a backwater, Almonds linked up with the redoubtable Lieutenant Jock Lewis and was involved in a number of night raids behind enemy lines to spike the guns of the Germans attacking Tobruk. Eventually despite their experience, Blakeney and his small band of survivors became disorientated in the pitch black desert and were captured by Italian guards at Tmimiu airfield. However, Justin Saddington, a curator at the museum, told The Telegraph that Mayne ripping out the compass was the "kind of Herculean act which amazed his comrades".

Now thanks to the efforts of his daughter, Lorna Almonds-Windmill, and the hit BBC drama SAS Rogue Heroes, the exploits of this highly-decorated Second World War hero are finally being brought to a wider audience. Nor could they afford to 'piss about' disciplining anyone who was not one hundred per cent devoted to having a good crack at the Hun.Mr Almonds was moved to another camp where he was spent seven months in solitary confinement in a room about the size of a toilet.

His father had taught him how to make things - that's what people did in Lincolnshire in those days - it's the practical Lincolnshire way. During the breakout, he had overpowered, tied up and gagged an Italian officer, removing the man’s teeth in the process. AS A sergeant with a troop of No 8 Commando in besieged Tobruk in 1941 “Gentleman Jim” Almonds was recruited by David Stirling with three companions to join “L” Detachment of the Special Air Service Brigade.On December 14, 1941, Almonds and Jock Lewes, another of the SAS originals, carried out a successful attack on the main Tripoli coastal road. Determined to get into action, he volunteered to be a gunner on a trawler and a rear gunner on a bomber.