Frederick Browning

Frederick Browning

Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Arthur Montague Browning GCVO, KBE, CB, DSO (20 December 1896 – 14 March 1965) was a British Army officer who has been called the "father of the British airborne forces". He is best known as the commander of the I Airborne Corps and deputy commander of First Allied Airborne Army during Operation Market Garden. During the planning for this operation he memorably said: "I think we might be going a bridge too far." He was also an Olympic bobsleigh competitor, and the husband of author Daphne du Maurier.

A graduate of Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Browning was commissioned a second lieutenant in 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. After the war, he competed in the bobsleigh at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in which his team finished tenth. He married Daphne du Maurier in July 1932.

During the Second World War, Browning commanded the 1st Airborne Division and I Airborne Corps. He led the latter during Operation Market Garden, travelling by glider to participate in the assault. In December 1944 he became Chief of Staff of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten's South East Asia Command. From 1946 to 1948, he was Military Secretary of the War Office.

In January 1948, Browning became Comptroller and Treasurer to Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth Duchess of Edinburgh. After she ascended to the throne 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.