Frederick Browning

Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Arthur Montague "Boy" Browning, (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". 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." 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.