Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A notable campaign group of five awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel P. R. Oliver, ‘The great Peter Oliver of Everest’, 13th Frontier Force Rifles, Indian Army, who was killed in action in Burma on 25 February 1945 - an internationally renowned mountaineer who made a number of notable ascents in the Himalayas he participated in the British Everest expeditions of 1936 and 1938, and his illustrations were used in a number of books on Himalayan mountaineering

India General Service 1936-39, 1 clasp, North West Frontier 1936-37 (Capt. P. R. Oliver, 1-13 F.F. Rif.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Burma Star; War Medal 1939-45, with M.I.D. oak leaf, good very fine and better (5) £700-£900

Peter Roderick Oliver was born at Monsoorie, India, on 29 August 1907, the son of Major E. W. Oliver, Indian Army, and was educated at Sherborne School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Indian Army on 1 September 1927, and was posted to the 1st Battalion, 13th Frontier Force Rifles (Coke’s) on 1 November 1928. He served as a Company Officer until March 1930 when he was appointed Quartermaster, retaining that post until attached to the South Waziristan Scouts from December 1933-February 1937. Frank Smythe wrote: ‘For some years he was attached to the South Waziristan Scouts, a force of levies recruited to guards the North-West Frontier, in which he saw much varied service and participated in a number of skirmishes.’ Relinquishing this appointment, he rejoined the 1st/13th as a Company Officer, then officiating Company Commander, serving with them on the North West Frontier from 9 October to 16 December 1937, before being appointed Station Staff Officer, Fort Lockhart (on the North-West Frontier) in February 1939, a post he held until August 1939.

Mountaineer
Peter Oliver was elected to the Alpine Club in 1933. The foremost mountaineer of his generation, Frank Smythe, wrote: ‘His qualifications included three seasons’ climbing and exploration in the Himalayas, and one season without guides in the Alps. His first climbs were made with E. H. Marriott in the Kanawar Kailas group, Baspa valley; thenceforward part at least of his leaves were spent in the hills. In 1930 he visited the Dhaula Okar range above Dharmsala in the Kngra valley and recorded his experiences in Vol. III of The Himalayan Journal. These ascents, made either alone or with an unskilled orderly, involved both rock climbing and snow and ice work. Like the good mountaineer he was quickly becoming, he records how, when descending a steep snow slope overlaid with loose hail, he took the greatest care to drive his crampons into the firm substrata...’

Oliver made a number of notable ascents in the Himalayas, and participated in the British Everest expeditions of 1936 and 1938. He was a talented artist and his illustrations were used in a number of books on Himalayan mountaineering, and was immortalised as ‘Peter Oliver of Everest’ by Jon Masters in Bugles and a Tiger: ‘Scouts on the move were a magnificent sight. The British Officers were indistinguishable from the men – all brown as berries, all wearing khaki turbans, gray shirts flapping loose outside khaki shorts, stockings and nailed sandal... Several famous mountaineers, including the great Peter Oliver of Everest, had served with Scouts at one time or another.’

Second World War
Oliver was appointed GSO III in 5th Indian Division (which was formed in India in 1939) on 17 July 1940, and was advanced to Staff Captain of the 9th Infantry Brigade in the same division on 14 July 1941. He returned to India in March 1942 following active service with the famous 5th Indian Division in the Sudan (September 1940 to January 1941), Eritrea (January to June 1941), and the Western Desert (June 1941 to March 1942). He was promoted to Acting Major in April 1941 and temporary Major in July of the same year.

Back in India Oliver went to the Tactical School. His next appointment was to HQ, 2nd Division in June 1943 as DAQMG, at which time he was promoted Acting (afterwards Temporary) Lieutenant-Colonel. Then, in September 1944 he was made second-in-command of the 8th Battalion of his regiment before proceeding to take command of the 9th Battalion in November 1944. The 9th Battalion Frontier Force Rifles was the Machine Gun Battalion of the famous 17th Indian Division and Colonel Oliver led the battalion into Burma in January 1945. As a Machine Gun Battalion, companies were parcelled out to brigades as operations required, leaving the C.O. with undefined duties. As such, Colonel Oliver was attached to Divisional HQ during the advance on Meiktila. The Adjutant of the battalion later wrote: ‘I always thought Peter took over the battalion somewhat reluctantly - his consuming desire was to get into Combined Operations, and I think he found commanding a Machine Gun Battalion something less than romantic.’

Killed in Action
Douglas Monghir, another brother officer in Oliver’s Battalion in Burma, wrote: ‘Peter Oliver was cast in the mould of a Boy’s Own Paper hero of the Empire, lean, tanned, tall and handsome... Before he joined us he had a party in the Regimental Centre in Abbottobad and said “I shall either be killed or win a VC”.’

At Taungtha on 25 February 1945 Colonel Oliver met his death in action. The 5th Indian Division was was advancing on the village in a pincer movement and the fighting became confused. Divisional HQ found itself involved in the battle and Oliver, who was then in charge of the Divisional Headquarters Column, went in his jeep to find the leading troops of the Divisional HQ escort, who had taken a wrong turning, and ran into a Japanese ambush: ‘Unfortunately he ran into a party of Japs with an L.M.G. and was killed while returning their fire from the edge of the road. His body was brought back by Subadar Saif Ali and a small party, and he was buried the next morning just outside Taungtha’. According to his obituary in The Journal of the Alpine Club: ‘Together with his driver and his orderly he left the jeep and engaged the enemy with his rifle. The sound of his firing warned the vehicles [that had taken a wrong turning] and by taking a diversion they managed to escape. Having accomplished his purpose, he decided to return, but before he could regain the jeep he was shot in the neck and body by machine gun fire and instantly killed.’
Oliver was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches for Burma (London Gazette 9 May 1946), and is buried in Taukkyan War Cemetery.

Sold with an original named group photograph of 1st Battalion (Coke’s) 13th Frontier Force Rifles officers, c.1932 (including Oliver); a pencil sketch by Oliver depicting men of Coke’s Rifles moving stores, initialled ‘PRO’ and identified on reverse as ‘Sketch by Peter Oliver of Cookies’; a superb research file including copies of original service records, extensive correspondence from former Frontier Force Regiment officers with whom Peter Oliver served in the 1930s and ‘40s (mid-1980s, from which some of the anecdotes and details below are extracted), and various obituaries &c.; and a copy of Everest: The Unfinished Adventure by Hugh Ruttledge (Hodder & Stoughton, 1st Edition, 1937), being a full record of the 1936 Everest Expedition, illustrated with Oliver’s sketches (including a self portrait) and containing references to him throughout, as well as several photographs.

Note: Various diaries, sketches and artefacts (including the ice axe used by him in the 1938 Mount Everest Expedition) are held in the Sherborne School archives. Other papers and diaries, including WW2 era correspondence to his mother and brother from the Middle East, India and Burma were auctioned by Christie’s, South Kensington, in 2003.