Miles Browning

Admiral Halsey suffered a severe attack of dermatitis on the Enterprise on the way back from launch of the successful Doolittle bombing raid, and was hospitalized in Hawaii. Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, Halsey's hand-picked successor, inherited Halsey's staff just prior to the Battle of Midway.[3] Spruance, who had commanded a cruiser division since the beginning of the war, was concerned about leading a carrier group because he had no prior aviation or carrier experience. Halsey reassured him, telling Spruance to rely on his battle-tested staff, especially Browning.[3][5]

Unfortunately, Browning had an abrasive personality. Spruance found it difficult to get along with his chief of staff during and after Midway.[5][6] Military historian Samuel Eliot Morison referred to Browning as "one of the most irascible officers ever to earn a fourth stripe, but he was a man with a slide-rule brain."[7] Others said he had a "calculator brain"[8] and "a superintellect that evoked praise – often begrudging – from his superiors." Browning is commonly described as "crusty and brawling,"[9] clever, daring, exceptionally aggressive, and uncontrollable. He was willful, arrogant, a hard drinker, and violent tempered. Despite his many personality flaws, he was respected as a brilliant tactical officer.

Midway would be a critical battle for the United States and its allies, one that all parties knew might very well determine the outcome of the war in the Pacific. After the devastation of its battleships at Pearl Harbor six months earlier, the U.S. Navy was forced to place all its hopes on a small aircraft carrier force that was dwarfed by the strength of Japan's Combined Fleet. As chief of staff for Task Force 16, Browning was charged with supporting Rear Admiral Spruance during the impending battle as the Imperial Japanese Navy, undefeated for over 350 years,[10] bore down on Midway Island.

American signals intelligence had intercepted and decrypted Japanese radio messages. Because of this, they knew that Midway was the Combined Fleet's invasion target, and they had a good estimate of the invasion fleet's direction of approach and anticipated time of arrival at the island. Although the Japanese Navy was not aware of this breach in its radio security, it did change its codes in accordance with protocol as its fleet steamed across the Pacific toward the strategic U.S. air base at Midway. Commanded by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Imperial Fleet knew it would meet resistance, but did not know it had lost the element of surprise. Yamamoto's intent was to draw whatever was left of the American fleet into a battle so that any remaining U.S. warships could be destroyed, then occupy Midway and use it as a base against Hawaii and as leverage for a negotiated peace. Yamamoto's second-in-command, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, the hero of Pearl Harbor, also expected to achieve complete surprise at Midway. He failed to anticipate attacks from any of America's remaining carriers,[8] and presumed that the heavily damaged Yorktown had been sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Some accounts credit Browning's tactical talent and carrier operations experience with winning the battle of Midway.[3][11] According to these, on the morning of 4 June 1942 Spruance wanted to wait to launch attack aircraft until the Japanese ships were within 100 miles (160 km).[9] Spruance's biographer Thomas Buell disagrees, saying that Spruance had always planned to launch as early as possible. According to naval historian John Lindstrom, "Morison misunderstood the time expressed in the TF 16 war diary" and "created the fiction of Spruance's supposed desire to delay the launch. It did not arise from Browning's wartime reputation or from any recollections by participants."[12]

Despite last minute tactical changes in the Japanese fleet's path of advance and U.S. operational delays after launch that forced them to improvise in the air, dive bombers from the U.S. carrier task force managed to find and bomb three of the Japanese aircraft carriers while they were at their most vulnerable (re-arming and refueling aircraft on the flight decks), setting the carriers on fire and winning the battle in the space of 10 minutes. This confirmed the analysis Browning had first presented in his 1936 tactical thesis. Critically low on fuel by then, 18 of those dive bombers failed to return. By the end of the day, the task force's dive bombers had sunk all four of the big carriers Japan sent to Midway. Before it was sunk, however, the fourth Japanese carrier launched a successful air attack on the Yorktown, damaging it further and contributing to its ultimate loss. Losses suffered by the U.S. carriers' torpedo bomber squadrons were even worse than the dive bombers' losses. Carrying unreliable torpedoes and attacking low, slow and unescorted due to a series of snafus similar to those that plagued the dive bombers, the torpedo bombers had been easy prey for the Japanese carriers' defending Zeros. The torpedo squadrons were almost completely wiped out (37 of 41 aircraft lost); Torpedo Squadron 8 had exactly one survivor. But with no aircraft carriers left, Admiral Yamamoto's large surviving fleet returned to Japan. The U.S. had won at Midway, and with a high cost.[3][8][13][14][15]

By early afternoon on June 5, Admiral Spruance knew Yamamoto's fleet was retreating. Concerned that at least one Japanese carrier might still be afloat, Spruance ordered Task Force 16 to pursue and attack. 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. Air Group Six commander Wade McClusky and two of his senior pilots objected vehemently to this unrealistic attack plan, which provided no margin for error. All three pilots had flown dive bombers in the successful attack on the morning of June 4, and all three would later be awarded the Navy Cross for it. McClusky had landed on Enterprise with no more than two gallons of fuel left, and other dive-bomber pilots in the air group had ditched their planes in the ocean after running out of fuel. After hearing McClusky outline the solid reasons for their objection, then listening patiently to a heated discussion between Browning and the normally soft-spoken McClusky, Admiral Spruance sided with the pilots. The planes took off with the lighter bombs (500 lb. instead of 1000 lb.), and took off an hour later than specified in the original plan. Events during the subsequent attack confirmed that in this instance LCDR McClusky and the other two pilots had been right.[16]

Enterprise returned to Pearl Harbor on 13 June 1942.

Unfortunately, Browning continued to be a man of tremendous contradictions. At this moment of triumph, in the summer of 1942, he had an affair with the wife of a fellow officer, Commander Francis Massie Hughes. Combined with his drinking and unstable temperament, this breach of trust would eventually help to derail his career. But Captain Browning resumed combat duties in October 1942 when Halsey was given command of the South Pacific theater, where Allied fortunes had gone from bad to worse. Browning's tactical advice as chief of staff helped Halsey achieve the command miracle in the Solomon Islands that did much to turn the tide in the Pacific.[7]

Like Midway, the Guadalcanal Campaign was another critical turning point in the Pacific war. The first major offensive by combined Allied forces against Japanese-held territory, it was a desperate ongoing sea, air, and ground campaign that required continual, almost daily, aircraft action. Repeated Japanese counterstrikes were repelled while Halsey ran the entire South Pacific Force – including U.S. and Allied army, navy and marine forces – from his headquarters at Nouméa in New Caledonia, with assistance from Browning, a handful of staff officers, and some fifty bluejackets. Audacious strikes by air, land and sea, and the tenacity and sacrifices of thousands of soldiers, sailors and marines under Admiral Halsey's command led to the historic naval victory at Guadalcanal in early November 1942.[7]

Again, Halsey generously gave Browning credit for much of his success. In a New Year's Day 1943 letter to Admiral Nimitz (CINCPAC) concerning Browning's precarious career situation, Halsey wrote, "Miles has an uncanny knack of sizing up a situation and coming out with an answer." Admitting that his chief of staff was "decidedly temperamental", Halsey begged Nimitz not to break up "this partnership" between himself and Browning, writing, "I am almost superstitious about it."[7] Several days later, however, Browning antagonized visiting Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, earning himself another powerful enemy who then replaced Browning over Halsey's objections.[17] Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet, and another old enemy, concurred. Halsey had pushed for a promotion to Commodore for Browning, but this did not happen.

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

Browning was detached from Halsey's staff in July 1943 to become the commanding officer of the new attack carrier USS Hornet (CV-12), namesake of USS Hornet (CV-8), which had been lost in October 1942 at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. During his tenure in command, USS Hornet (CV-12) took part in massive air strikes against Japanese bases in the Pacific, including Palau, Truk, and Ponape, and provided carrier-launched air support during the Allied invasion of New Guinea and the Jayapura operation, both of which began on 22 April 1944.

On 13 April 1944, Rear Admiral Joseph J. Clark had hoisted his flag on Hornet as commander of Task Group 58.1, which consisted of Hornet and three Independence-class light carriers. Not long after this, during a nighttime showing of a film on Hornet's hangar deck, someone discharged a CO₂ canister and triggered a stampede. In the chaos, two sailors fell overboard; one of them drowned. By this time, Browning had alienated several more of his superiors, including Admiral Clark and Task Force 58 commander Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher, who were waiting for Browning to make a misstep after numerous ship-handling mistakes and general insubordination. Browning was also 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.[18] When 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 Browning's removal from command. The ensuing ruin of his career, which Morison called "one of the great wastes to the American prosecution of the war",[19] may have had little to do with combat results but had a great deal to do with flaws in his leadership. Browning was removed from command of Hornet in May 1944[20] 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.[19]

Browning toured Japan in 1949, and stated that radiation damage from the atomic bombs was a "myth". He 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.[21]

Browning retired from active duty on January 1, 1947, and was retroactively promoted to rear admiral (upper half).[2] He 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. Browning resigned from this post in 1952.[21]

Grave at Arlington National Cemetery

On September 29, 1954, Browning died of systemic lupus erythematosus at Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston. He was buried on October 6, 1954, at Arlington National Cemetery.[22]

In the 1976 film Midway, Browning was portrayed by actor Biff McGuire. In the 1988 TV-mini series War and Remembrance, Episode 3, Browning was portrayed by actor Michael McGuire. In the 2019 film Midway Browning was portrayed by actor Eric Davis. In the 2019 film Dauntless: The Battle of Midway, Browning was portrayed by actor C. Thomas Howell.