Page 175 - They Also Served

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Peter Oliver 1927.
The son of an Indian Army officer, Peter
Roderick Oliver was born in Mussoorie,
India, on 29th August 1907. Educated at
Sherborne School, he was commissioned
from Sandhurst into the Indian Army
on 1st September 1927, subsequently
joining the 1st Battalion Frontier Force
Rifles (Coke’s). After regimental service,
he was attached to the South Waziristan
Scouts, a force of levies recruited to
guard the North-West Frontier. Involved in numerous skirmishes and small actions, Oliver was awarded the Indian General Service Medal with clasp North-West Frontier 1936–37.
A keen and talented climber, Oliver honed his skills in the Himalayas and, when on leave, in the Alps and was elected a member of the Alpine Club in 1932. The foremost British mountaineer of the day, Frank Smythe, wrote: ‘His qualifications included three seasons climbing and expeditions in the Himalayas and one season, without guides, in the Alps. Many of these ascents, made either alone or with an unskilled orderly, involved rock climbing and snow and ice work’. In 1935, Oliver was given leave to take part in expeditions as part of Smythe’s group of ‘Everest Hopefuls’. Smythe was especially impressed with Oliver’s stamina, Himalayan experience, and rapport with local people. Subsequently, Oliver’s inclusion in the 1936 Everest expedition was a certainty as ‘new blood’ was brought into the squad.
However, the expedition was not a success. The leader, Hugh Ruttledge, was too old at 52 and not an especially able climber. Having reached the North Col and spotted, through binoculars, the body of George Mallory who had lost his life on the mountain over a decade earlier, monsoon weather curtailed the expedition. Nevertheless, Oliver returned to the mountain in 1938 in a much smaller and lower-budget expedition sponsored by The Times newspaper. Although the expedition reached a new height of 27,200 feet, the early onset of the monsoon made another attempt on the summit impossible. Despite the failure of the expedition, Oliver became known as ‘Everest Oliver’ throughout the Indian Army.
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