BRIGADIER Charles Barker MBE MC served with the Gordon Highlanders in France, North Africa, Sicily, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Malaya. he also held several exacting staff posts. His MC was awarded for his eight months as Brigade Major for 152 Infantry Brigade in north-West Europe during 1944-45. His citation recorded his cheerfulness, resource, and determination had been most marked and in the heat of the battle he had remained unruffled. The citation noted that on several occasions Brigade HQ was shelled and mortared and his readiness maturely to take decisions in the absence of his commander affected the success of several operations.
Charles Norman Barker, one of six children, was born on November 19, 1919, and was educated at Rugby School, Cheltenham College, and Sandhurst before being commissioned into the Gordon Highlanders in July 1939. He served in France with the 1st Battalion in 1939-40, and was evacuated from St Nazaire when the Battle of France was lost.
His next posting was to the Middle East where he fought in the Western Desert and Tunisia, took part in the Battle of Alamein, and was twice wounded, including being blown up by a mine at Mersa Brega.
In 1943 he was one of the first ashore at Cape Pessaro at the beginning of the Sicily Campaign. He nearly drowned in the rough sea on landing and nearly shot his own CO whom he had mistaken for an Italian soldier. During the subsequent campaign he was mentioned in Dispatches. Later that year he attended a war-time course at the Staff College, Camberley, and then took part in the North-West Europe Campaign from Normandy to the Baltic.
At the end of the European Campaign he was posted to the 14th Army in Burma but the war ended in August 1945 so, instead of fighting the Japanese, he became a Staff Officer in Calcutta, engaged in controlling the communal riots.
In 1948 he rejoined his regiment at Essen, Germany, first as a Company Commander, then Adjutant. A year later, he was selected to be an instructor at Sandhurst and in 1951 was posted to Accra, on the staff of West Africa command.
He rejoined his regiment in Malaya in 1953 where he was a Company Commander in the 1st Battalion, engaged in anti-terrorist operations in the jungle. Two years later he was posted to HQ Scottish Command, at the end of which in 1957 he was awarded an MBE. Later postings included Depot Commander at the Gordon Barracks, Aberdeen, Commander of the Junior Leaders Regiment at Oswestry, Assistant Secretary to the Chiefs of Staff Committee in the MoD and later to the Higher Organisation Committee, and Depute Commander West Midland District TA.
After retirement from the Army in 1974 he became Chief Executive and Secretary to the West Midlands Agricultural Society until 1983.
In retirement he was president of the Shropshire Art Society, where he was a keen watercolour artist. He married in 1942 and is survived by his wife and two sons and daughters.
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