For the English cricketer and British Army officer, see Frederick Browning (cricketer).
Sir
Frederick Browning
Browning as General Officer Commanding, 1st Airborne Division, October 1942
Nickname(s)
Boy Tommy
Born
(1896-12-20)20 December 1896 Kensington, London
Died
14 March 1965(1965-03-14) (aged 68) Menabilly, Cornwall
Allegiance
United Kingdom
Service/branch
British Army
Years of service
1915–1948
Rank
Lieutenant-General
Service number
22588
Unit
Grenadier Guards
Commands held
I Airborne Corps (1943–44) 1st Airborne Division (1941–43) 24th Guards Brigade Group (1941) 128th Infantry Brigade (1940–41) Small Arms School (1939–40) 2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards (1936–39)
Battles/wars
First World War
Third Battle of Ypres
Battle of Cambrai
German spring offensive
Hundred Days Offensive
Second World War
North African campaign
Allied invasion of Sicily
Operation Market Garden
Burma campaign 1944–45
Awards
Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire Companion of the Order of the Bath Distinguished Service Order Mentioned in Despatches (2) Croix de Guerre (France) Commander's Cross with Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta (Poland) Commander of the Legion of Merit (United States)
Spouse(s)
Daphne du Maurier
(m. 1932)
Relations
Frederick Browning (father)
Montague Browning (uncle)
Other work
Treasurer to the Duke of Edinburgh Comptroller to Princess Elizabeth
Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Arthur Montague "Boy" Browning, GCVO, KBE, CB, DSO (20 December 1896 – 14 March 1965) was a senior officer of the British Army who has been called the "father of the British airborne forces".[1] He was also an Olympic bobsleigh competitor, and the husband of author Daphne du Maurier.
Educated at Eton College and then at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Browning was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Grenadier Guards in 1915. During the First World War, he fought on the Western Front, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous gallantry during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917. In September 1918, he became aide de camp to General Sir Henry Rawlinson.
During the Second World War, Browning commanded the 1st Airborne Division and I Airborne Corps and was also the deputy commander of First Allied Airborne Army during Operation Market Garden in September 1944. During the planning for this operation, he was alleged to have said: "I think we might be going a bridge too far."[2][3][4] In December 1944 he became Chief of Staff of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten's South East Asia Command. From September 1946 to January 1948, he was Military Secretary of the War Office.
In January 1948, Browning became Comptroller and Treasurer to Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh. After she ascended to the throne to become Queen Elizabeth II in 1952, he became treasurer in the Office of the Duke of Edinburgh. He suffered a severe nervous breakdown in 1957 and retired in 1959. He died at Menabilly, the mansion that inspired his wife's novel Rebecca, on 14 March 1965.
^Mead 2010, p. 66
^Ryan 1974, p. 67
^Beevor 2019, p. 31: "Browning had strenuously supported Comet, which included Arnhem. Now, he was to command three and a half airborne divisions to do the same job, not just one and a half, so he was unlikely to oppose the field marshal on the subject. And the suggestion that on 10 September Browning had said to Montgomery that Arnhem might be going 'a bridge too far' is highly improbable, since they do not appear to have met that day."
^Buckingham 2002, p. 209: "[Roy] Urquhart's biographer also casts doubt on whether Browning expressed such a reservation and suggests that the bridge too far comment came from Montgomery."
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