Former soldier from Boldmere pens book on 'Forgotten War'

Peter Shergold has written The War in Northern Oman: Muscat and the Sultanate of Oman, 1954-1962, published by Helion & Company.

The war fought in northern Oman from 1954 until the mid-1960s is almost completely forgotten and Peter, originally from Walsall, was keen to bring it to people's attention."

"I was in the army for 15 years, with the Staffords, which became the Mercians, and while in there I was seconded to the Sultan of Oman's Armed Forces.," he said.

"I was out there in Oman for two years, training up their army and while there learnt a lot about the country and history.

"In my spare time, I thought I'd do some writing about it. I spoke to a publisher to see whether they were interested and they were!

"I have a lot of links to veterans as well so reached out to see if anyone had served in Oman at that time and met a few of the old boys and chatted to them.

"It was fascinating. The war in northern Oman was a little known and hard old campaign."

"The old boys who served at the time all had interesting experiences. One was a Desert Intelligence Officer, which is fascinating role, classic Lawrence of Arabia stuff.

"The whole conflict is fascinating thing. People who have heard anything about it know of an SAS assault on Jebel Akhdar mountain but there were a lot of units involved and the campaign was a lot wider than that.

"The RAF dropped more bomb on the mountain than the Germans did on Coventry in World war Two. It was a hell of a bombing campaign.

"The enemy, not the most well armed insurgents in the world, shot down a venom bomber and the ruin is still there on the mountain to this day.

"There was siege warfare. It was an interesting period of time with some interesting politics behind it as well as the campaign itself.

"So it was good to get my teeth into some military history writing. I really enjoyed it.

"I did it as a labour of love but it's done well so far and hopefully people who wish to read about it will enjoy the book."

The War in Northern Oman: Muscat and the Sultanate of Oman, 1954-1962 is available on Amazon.