Ships
- USS Gatling (DD-671) Captain, 19 August 1943 – 27 December 1944
Alvin Franklin Richardson was born on 1 May 1907 in Sturgis, Mississippi, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1931. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 July 1939, to temporary lieutenant commander on 15 June 1942, and to temporary commander on 1 November 1942.
He took command of the new Fletcher-class destroyer Gatling when she was commissioned on 19 August 1943 at the New York Navy Yard. Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Kearny, New Jersey, had laid the ship down on 3 March 1943 and launched her on 20 June. Richardson took her through shakedown out of Bermuda, a yard period at New York early in November, and training cruises from Norfolk for the crews of destroyers still under construction. On 19 November 1943 Gatling sailed to Trinidad and escorted the carrier Langley back to Norfolk.
On 16 January 1944 Gatling sortied with Task Force 58 for the invasion of the Marshall Islands. From then on Richardson kept her with the fast carrier forces as they struck Japanese bases and moved west. Late in April 1944 she was in the renewed attacks on Truk. From 10 June to 5 July she supported the invasion and occupation of the Marianas. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea that June, the ship was credited with six Japanese aircraft shot down or shared.
The autumn of 1944 carried the same work into the western Pacific. Gatling took part in the invasion of Palau and in the carrier air strikes against the Philippines and Formosa. On 24 October, off Leyte, she lay alongside the light carrier Princeton with the cruiser Birmingham and pulled clear after the explosion that destroyed the carrier's stern. In the rescue work of that season, four of her men received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and sixteen received the Bronze Star for heroism in saving lives. She landed survivors at Ulithi, then rejoined the carriers for strikes on the Philippines in November and December. Richardson received the Legion of Merit for his service as commanding officer in the Palau and Philippine invasions and in those air strikes.
He left Gatling on 27 December 1944, after sixteen months that began on the day she was commissioned and ran through the Philippine campaign. Vincent James Meola relieved him that day. Frank L. Fullaway commanded the destroyer from 26 November 1945 to 28 June 1946. Richardson later reached the rank of rear admiral. He died on 11 December 1984.