Ships
- USS Birmingham (CL-62) Captain from 11 August 1943 · Relieved on 24 October 1944
Thomas Browning Inglis commanded the light cruiser Birmingham (CL-62) for fourteen months, from the Solomons through the Marianas to Leyte Gulf. On 24 October 1944 he took her alongside the burning carrier Princeton to fight the fires. The carrier's magazines blew up with his ship fifty feet away. He was wounded and received the Navy Cross. After the war he was Director of Naval Intelligence and retired a vice admiral.
He was born on 19 November 1897 in Petoskey, Michigan. The surviving records do not describe his family or early schooling.
He was appointed to the Naval Academy and was a member of the Class of 1918. That class graduated early, in June 1917, because of the war. He was a commander by 1 September 1937. He made temporary captain on 1 January 1942, and the rank was confirmed on 30 June 1942. The digitized record seen here does not give his assignments between the wars.
He relieved John Wilkes in command of Birmingham at Norfolk on 11 August 1943 and took her through the Panama Canal to Pearl Harbor. She screened the carriers against Tarawa, Makin and Wake. On the night of 8 November 1943, off Bougainville, she was hit by two bombs and a torpedo. The ship held thirty knots and her station, and the damage-control men vented the flooded bow through an open trunk that spouted at every pitch. In June 1944 he took her in close off Saipan to draw the fire of shore batteries away from the demolition swimmers, and she fought in the Battle of the Philippine Sea and through the long bombardments of Tinian and Guam.
Inglis later wrote that he had already thought about how to help a carrier on fire. He had decided to go alongside on the windward side, close aboard, and use his hoses to drive the fire downwind. On 24 October 1944 he did so with Princeton. His hoses and volunteers had nearly beaten one of the two big fires when an air raid and a submarine alarm forced him to pull away. He came back, and at 1523, as Birmingham closed in again to take the carrier in tow, Princeton's after magazines exploded. Hundreds of men were killed or wounded on Birmingham's decks. Inglis's arm was broken and he had several shrapnel wounds. He recommended that Princeton's people be taken off and the carrier sunk, gave command to his executive officer, Winston P. Folk, and went below. His Navy Cross citation credits his "calm and efficient handling of a difficult situation." He formally gave up command at Mare Island on 22 November 1944 and needed months to recover. Asked later if he would do it again, he said: "I should take the same action—providing the same factors were involved and I had no crystal ball."
He was promoted to rear admiral and served as Director of Naval Intelligence from 1945 to 1949. He retired as a vice admiral. He died on 12 May 1984, aged 86. His papers, including orders, reports and board-of-inquiry proceedings about Birmingham, are at the Hoover Institution.