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A whole crowd of other men were due to arrive soon from the old Troop of their CO (Commanding Officer) David Stirling. He was then shipped to Italy where he and three friends escaped from a camp in February 1943 after overcoming an Italian officer. His fellow Tobruk Four veteran ‘Gentleman’ Jim Almonds would later describe Blakeney as “intelligent, courageous and uncomplaining. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. The Field Force had recently complained to the War Office, ‘You may have noticed that we are still, on paper, short of seventy-six NCOs… deficiencies in personal clothing and equipment have been shown at 75 per cent for many months past.
The founder members of the SAS were gathered informally, dressed in variations on the standard theme of the Commando uniform of khaki shorts and shirts. Written by Gentleman Jim s daughter and based on Almond s own diaries, various primary sources and interviews with other originals , the action throughout is vivid and immediate. The others were Jim Blakeney, a big raw-boned trawler-man from Grimsby; Pat Riley, a six footer with a round, jovial face; and Bob Lilley, slim built, with a thin, dark moustache and high cheekbones. Mr Almonds' daughter Lorna Almonds-Windmill wrote to the Telegraph following the article about the compass: "My father was the only member of 'L' Detachment 1st SAS to keep a contemporaneous diary and he lived to the age of 91. Earlier that day, he had agreed with Duncan Cumming, Britain’s Chief Administrator running Eritrea, to catch the shifta and retrieve fifty stolen cattle.Apart from the continued bombardment of Tobruk, which was besieged but still held on, peace appeared to have settled over the Western Desert. He was in uniform, but he had taken the precaution of turning his red beret inside out and drove through two road blocks without being detected. With Rommel's supplies coming through Benghazi harbour, the port became a natural target for the SAS.
When war broke out Blakeney had been working at the docks as a ‘lumper’ or general labourer at the busy docks. Boats fascinated him and, aged 10, he built his first craft, a punt made out of a bacon box with toffee tins as outriggers. However, it was also renowned for the notorious incident of when Paddy Mayne and his men gunned down Germans and Italians in the officers' mess. Stirling’s first operation against enemy airfields, by parachute, was a total failure, chiefly because atrocious weather resulted in the would-be saboteurs being dropped wide of their targets. He thought only of escape and the future; of his wife and baby son in England; and everything else he wanted to do.Not only did they have to dig in for the tentage but, according to the CQMS (Company Quarter Master Sergeant), they were going to have get the tents from somewhere, along with other essentials. Above his head, a column of cold air funnelled down through the hole made by a brick removed in the wall. There, they were trained by Lewes how to parachute, by leaping off scaffolding and jumping off the back of trucks moving at more than 30mph, as well as mastering the art of the small bombs Lewes had invented to destroy aircraft on the ground.
After a walk around, he telephoned the commandant, reported that there were no Germans in the area, then told him that he was going home and made for the mountains. Lorna Almonds-Windmill is a former Regular Army Captain who later had a career in the voluntary sector before becoming a Whitehall civil servant. Rommel was preparing to unleash his forces in one massive attempt to breach the Allies' flimsy defences and sweep into Cairo, Egypt and beyond. The short barrels and small calibre might support such a notion, but success depended on an accurate hit – and Almonds was a marksman.Indeed, if ever there was proof a professional soldier can be both ruthless killer and possess great compassion, Sergeant (later Major) Jim Almonds was that rare example. The US had a radio relay station, Radio Marina (later Kagnew Station), a captured Italian facility, on the outskirts of Asmara, at 7,000 feet above sea level.
The doctors said he would "always be a weakling" but at home the boy quickly recovered and later went on to command an SAS squadron at Hereford. In camp, they all owed it to each other, and to the good name of their new Unit, to maintain the highest possible standards of dress and behaviour. After intensive training in Scotland, Almonds went to Egypt as part of "Layforce" but the brigade was subsequently disbanded, and part of No 8 Commando joined the besieged garrison at Tobruk. The training itself was dangerous, including practising parachute landings by rolling from the back of a truck.
Not long afterwards, Almonds learned that his 20-year-old wife had discharged their son from the hospital where he was receiving no treatment and was expected to die. Until being admitted to hospital, he had lived in the house in the Lincolnshire village of Stixwould in which he was born. It employed many American servicemen stationed in Eritrea, gathering and beaming information into the Pentagon.
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