Ships
- USS Samuel S. Miles (DE-183) Captain, 21 May 1944 – 23 July 1945 · Sank I-177, 3 October 1944
Henry G. Brousseau, Jr., was born in Connecticut in August 1903 and served in the United States Naval Reserve. He was appointed a midshipman on 11 September 1920. He was a lieutenant from 3 January 1942 and a lieutenant commander from 1 March 1944, the rank he held while in command at sea.
On 21 May 1944 he took command of the destroyer escort Samuel S. Miles, relieving George B. Coale. The Cannon-class ship, DE-183, had been built by the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Newark, launched on 3 October 1943, and commissioned on 4 November 1943. Before Brousseau came aboard she had already passed through the Panama Canal to the Marshall Islands and had screened oilers for carrier strikes in the Carolines and off Hollandia.
His opening weeks in command fell during the capture of Saipan and Tinian. On 18 June 1944, while Samuel S. Miles guarded oilers off Saipan, her guns brought down two Japanese planes.
Before dawn on 3 October 1944, radar on the escort carrier Hoggatt Bay found the Japanese submarine I-177 on the surface north-northeast of Angaur. Brousseau was sent in. The boat dived. He attacked with Hedgehog, the forward-thrown anti-submarine mortar. The first salvo did not sink her. The second did, at 7°48′ N, 133°28′ E. No one came up. For his seamanship and for directing that attack, he received the Legion of Merit with Combat V.
After the sinking he kept Samuel S. Miles in the escort force for Leyte, for the landings on Luzon, for Iwo Jima, and for Okinawa. Off Okinawa she screened ships of the bombardment group. On 11 April 1945 a kamikaze missed her close aboard and killed one of her men.
He left Samuel S. Miles on 23 July 1945. Arthur T. Wendells relieved him. Edward A. Marelius commanded the escort from 5 November 1945 until she was decommissioned the following March. On that same November date Brousseau was promoted to commander.