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Brigadier Henry Joseph Patrick "Harry" Baxter CBE, OBE, GM, KM, MiD. 8 April 1921 - 10 January 2007
History
Harry Baxter was born a "child of the regiment" to the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Despite being blind in his right eye as the result of a childhood shooting accident in India he was determined to join the army in 1939. The medical officer who tested him was impressed to come across someone who was trying to cheat his way "into" the army that he passed him fit for the Indian Army. He gave up a scholarship place in Oxford University and was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. to the Punjab Regiment on 11 October 1942 with the number 363915. His Emergency Commission was changed to a Permanent Commission in the British Army on 25 May 1946 when he joined the Royal Irish Fusiliers as a Temporary Major.
Ulster Defence Regiment
Baxter assumed command of the controversial Ulster Defence Regiment in April 1973 from Brigadier Denis Ormerod. Like Ormerod, Baxter was a Roman Catholic commanding a regiment which was predominantly Protestant during a time of intercommunal strife in Northern Ireland.
He was in command during the notable Ulster Worker's Council strike in 1974 which was considered to be a "turning point" in the regiment's history and "coming of age" comments listed by Major John Potter (the UDR historian) in his unofficial biography of the regiment.
Miami Massacre
Baxter was also the commander of the UDR at the time of the Miami Showband killings when several soldiers of the regiment were involved in the killing of musicians outside the town of Banbridge. His comments at the time were:
- a feeling of shame on the part of our own soldiers that this could have happened, a realisation that there were rotten apples in the barrel and couldn't something be done about it?
References
- http://www.unithistories.com/officers/IndianArmy_officers_B01.html
- Doherty. In the Ranks of Death. ISBN 18441 5966-3 P37-8
- Doherty. In the Ranks of Death. ISBN 18441 5966-3 P37-8
- http://www.unithistories.com/officers/IndianArmy_officers_B01.html
- A Testimony to Courage - the Regimental History of the Ulster Defence Regiment 1969 - 1992, John Potter, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2001, ISBN 0-85052-819-4 P102
- A Testimony to Courage - the Regimental History of the Ulster Defence Regiment 1969 - 1992, John Potter, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2001, ISBN 0-85052-819-4 P132