Ships
- USS Wilkes-Barre (CL-103) Captain from 28 May 1947 · Relieved on 1 October 1947
Edward Randolph Gardner had Wilkes-Barre (CL-103) from 28 May 1947 until 1 October 1947, the last captain's tour before two lieutenant commanders closed her out for decommissioning. He had commanded a destroyer early in the war.
Uboat.net gives his birth as 22 November 1899 and does not give a place. Nothing fetched names his parents.
Uboat.net calls him Naval Academy class of 1922. It dates him a lieutenant commander from 29 January 1938, a commander from 28 March 1942, and a temporary captain from 1 April 1943. The NavSource list for Eberle (DD-430) names LCDR Edward Randolph Gardner Jr. from 4 December 1940 to 15 May 1942. The cruiser list and uboat.net omit the "Jr." The dates on Eberle are the same on both pages, so the destroyer command is treated as this officer's, and the extra "Jr." is recorded rather than used to split him into a second man. No Lucky Bag page was fetched.
The Eberle command is the only wartime sea command those pages list before the cruiser. NavSource gives him Wilkes-Barre as captain from 28 May 1947 to 1 October 1947. DANFS does not name him. He relieved Captain Rutledge Barker Tompkins and was relieved by Lieutenant Commander Charles Henry Johnson, Jr. The ship was decommissioned eight days after Johnson's relief, on 9 October 1947.
No death date and no later duty were in the pages fetched. NavSource leaves the final-rank column blank.