The Battle of Mirbat is a surprisingly not well known British Imperial/SAS triumph from a time when the Western powers weren't really kicking goals in foreign policy - 1972. It involved, so the blurb says, nine SAS fighting off a well organised force of over 400 rebels desperate to knock off the Sultan of Oman... but actually that wasn't the whole truth, there were over a score of Omanis on the SAS's side, helping out, firing guns and taking casualties.
That's still an impressive achievement, but this book does suffer from an overly pro-SAS view; everything the SAS does is brave, clever or wonderful. Now I'm sure they were brave, clever and wonderful, but describing a few flaws (or at least fleshing out the stories of the opposition) wouldn't have hurt.
Anyway, I did enjoy the book, and its surprising this tale hasn't been filmed yet, especially considering the success the British film industry has enjoyed with war movies. It's full of memorable anecdotes and stories: the very British coup with the mad sultan whisked off to the Dorchester; the fact many of the SAS fought the battle in thongs and used margarine to ease their bullets through their machine guns; the role of luck in battle (grenades that go dead, bullets that just missed).
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