‘Gentleman Jim’ Almonds

Friday 10th November 2023
19.00 – 21.30
International Bomber Command Centre
Canwick Hill
Lincoln LN4 2HQ

Bar will be available
Q & A Session

Gentleman Jim Almonds, MM and Bar, Croix de Guerre, was one of the first men to join David Stirling’s L Detachment, 1st SAS in the Western Desert in 1941.
Jim (John Edward) Almonds to give him the names with which he was christened in 1914 at Stixwould, near Woodhall Spa was the only one of twelve SAS ‘Originals’ who kept a daily, personal diary throughout the founding of the SAS. From the Coldstream Guards in 1939, he joined No. 8 Guards Commando, sailed to the Middle East in 1941 and became one of the Tobruk Four. They developed the technique of clandestine four-man operations and carried it into the SAS.
Almonds was also awarded gallantry medals for outstanding bravery in the field and remains one of the SAS’s greatest escapers. He escaped from two of the three Italian PoW camps in which he was held. The second time he got clean away and returned to the SAS to parachute into occupied France.