In August 1935 he was discharged and described as "temperamentally unsuited to the military profession"; Browne would later claim that he was in fact expelled as a result of an affair with an officer's wife.
[1] After leaving the military Browne became a cadet journalist on Smith's Weekly and then travelled to the United States, writing for the Chicago Tribune.
It was later rumoured that he had served with communist forces in the Spanish Civil War in 1937, receiving a Soviet decoration after his wounding, a fact he later refused to confirm or deny.
[1] Browne, now a greyhound racing correspondent for The Daily Mirror, enlisted in the Citizen Military Forces in January 1942, serving in anti-tank regiments and then with the North Australia Observer Unit as a commissioned lieutenant.
The reviewer for the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Emery Barcs, while praising it as "interesting, amusing and thought-producing", said Browne's "unbalanced and often quite illogical and unreasonable emotionalism" weakened what would otherwise have been an important book.
Labor MP Charles Morgan began the affair in May by objecting in parliament to a reference made in the Bankstown Observer (of which Browne was the editor) alleging his involvement in "an immigration racket".