Miles Browning - Banishment

Banishment

In the spring of 1944, 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. A board of investigation was ordered, which criticized Browning's command. The ensuing ruin of his career, "one of the great wastes to the American prosecution of the war," resulted, ironically, from nothing having to do with combat. 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. Halsey was given command of the carrier-oriented Third Fleet during 1944-1945, but with his old chief of staff tossed onto the beach, he made grave mistakes that Browning might well have been able to help prevent.

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 of the blasts.

Browning retired from active duty on January 1, 1947, just short of his 50th birthday, and was retroactively promoted to rear admiral (upper half). 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.

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.