28 Facts About Miles Browning

Miles Rutherford Browning was an officer in the United States Navy in the Atlantic during World War I and in the Pacific during World War II.

Miles Browning was removed from command in May 1944, after a shipboard incident in which a Hornet sailor drowned.

Miles Browning was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, the son of Sarah Louise and New York City stockbroker Oren Fogle Browning, Jr.

Miles Browning attended public schools before his appointment to the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1914.

Lieutenant Miles Browning joined the destroyer Badger in 1920, serving as executive officer until he was transferred a year later to similar duty as XO of the destroyer Kidder.

In January 1924, Miles Browning reported to Naval Air Station Pensacola for flight training.

From January 1925 until May 1927, Miles Browning was assigned to Observation Squadron 2, attached first to the minelayer Aroostook, then later to the battleship Idaho.

Miles Browning was assigned his first aviation command in July 1929: Scouting Squadron 5S, the aviation unit of the light cruiser Trenton.

Miles Browning was part of the group of "progressives" who pushed for development of a fast high-performance fighter, with maneuverability secondary to speed.

Miles Browning served in that capacity until June 1936, when he reported to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, for postgraduate studies with additional duty at the Naval Torpedo Station there.

In 1936, the year that Nazi Germany allied with Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan, Miles Browning laid out his tactical logic in a 13-page, single-spaced, typewritten memorandum on carrier warfare prepared at the Naval War College.

Miles Browning organized the Fleet Aircraft Tactical Unit based on Yorktown, and commanded it for two additional years.

When Halsey became the commander of Air Battle Forces two years later, Miles Browning remained on his staff as Operations and War Plans Officer, and he became Halsey's chief of staff in June 1941.

Miles Browning was willful, arrogant, a hard drinker, and violent tempered.

Miles Browning prepared an ambitious attack plan, to arm dive bombers with the heaviest bombs available and launch the planes at the extreme limit of their operational range.

Unfortunately, Miles Browning continued to be a man of tremendous contradictions.

In March 1943, Miles Browning married Jane Matthews, the woman with whom he had the 1942 affair; she was his fourth and last wife.

Miles Browning was widely hated by his subordinates, especially the pilots, who held him responsible for numerous crashes as he enforced an unrealistically short take-off distance for the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, which he based on the manufacturer's theoretical claims instead of the pilots' own practical experience with as-built aircraft on the carrier.

When Miles Browning refused to have a boat lowered to rescue the drowning sailors despite Admiral Clark's urgent recommendation that he do so, a board of investigation was ordered, which led to Miles Browning's removal from command.

Miles Browning was removed from command of Hornet in May 1944 and reassigned to the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he taught carrier battle tactics during the final months of the war.

Miles Browning toured Japan in 1949, and stated that radiation damage from the atomic bombs was a "myth".

Miles Browning pointed to gardens and a number of tall chimneys left standing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "proof" that there were no long-term effects from the blasts.

Miles Browning retired from active duty on January 1,1947, and was retroactively promoted to rear admiral.

Miles Browning was appointed New Hampshire's Civil Defense Director in 1950, where he devised a plan wherein 500,000 displaced residents of Boston could be housed in New Hampshire private homes in the event of disaster.

On September 29,1954, Miles Browning died of systemic lupus erythematosus at Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston.

Miles Browning was buried on October 6,1954, at Arlington National Cemetery.

On May 20,1922, Browning married San Francisco socialite Cathalene Isabella Parker, stepdaughter of Vice Admiral Clark H Woodward.

In 1970, Jane Miles Browning testified to Congress about the small widow's pension she received and her penury.