Richard Paul Gardner
T/5 in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn : Co B, 1st Platoon
ASN#31134435
Born 1918 in MA, Died 2008
County of residence at enlistment: Suffolk County, MA
Other residence(s): Quincy, MA; Plymouth, MA; Rockland, MA; Hanover, MA; Buzzards Bay, MA
United States Army, European Theatre of Operations
Occupation before the war: machinists apprentices
College education before the war: 1 year
Richard Gardner was born on January 15, 1918 in Boston, MA, the middle of three sons; his father worked as an auto mechanic. He grew up in Quincy, MA and in early 1940 was living with his brother and divorced mother in Plymouth, MA and working as a sign painter. By the time he registered for the draft, on October 1, 1940, he was working with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in New Hampshire.
Somewhere along the line he completed a year of college. When he enlisted, on June 16, 1942, he was working as a machinist's apprentice and likely living in Boston, MA. He married Edna Wright around this time; their first child, Stephen, was born in 1943.
Richard was assigned to the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, and saw service in Europe during the war. He was discharged with the rank of T/5 and returned to Plymouth where he got a job as a display carpenter for a store window display company.
He and Edna would have six more children after the war: John, David, Richard Jr., Brian, Bonnie, and Beth. They settled in Rockland, MA in the late 1950s; Richard joined the Rockland Old Colony VFW post in 1960.
Richard seems to have been possessed of writing skills and a strong religious faith, judging by the tone of his numerous letters to the editor in the Quincy Patriot-Ledger in the late 1950s. He opined (in both prose and poetry) on such issues as Jayne Mansfield as a bad role model, whether or not to publish the names of young criminals, bad movies, pornography on the newsstand, Teamster corruption, the role of evil, and other issues.
Edna Gardner died in 2006 when the couple was living in Hanover, MA. Richard was living in Buzzards Bay, MA when he died, on July 5, 2008, and is buried at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne, MA.
Sources:
1920 census
1930 census
1938 Quincy MA city directory
1940 census
1940 draft card
1942 enlistment record
1950 census
1950-1988 US public records index
1957 sample letter to the editor in the Quincy Patriot Ledger (MA)
1960 article in the Patriot Ledger (Quincy MA) re his joining VFW
2006 wife's obituary in the Boston Globe (MA)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/443750681/?terms=edna%20gardner&match=1
2008 obituary in the Patriot Ledger (Quincy MA)
2008 obituary (same as Patriot Ledger)
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/southofboston-ledger/name/richard-gardner-obituary?id=24811271
2008 Find a Grave record
2008 US Veterans' Gravesites