Frank K. Richardson

Frank Kellogg Richardson (February 13, 1914 – October 5, 1999) was an American attorney and Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. Early life and education Born in St. Helena, California, Richardson graduated from Germantown High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pennsylvania his freshman year but transferred to Stanford University, where he earned an A.B. with distinction in political science in 1935 and was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He then went on to earn his LL.B. from Stanford Law School in 1938. After being admitted to the California State Bar in 1938, Richardson entered private practice in Oroville sharing office space with retired Butte County Judge Hirman Gregory. Military service During World War II, Richardson entered the U.S. Army, serving from 1942 to 1945 in Europe. He trained at Camp Ritchie in its Military Intelligence Training Center and is considered one of the Ritchie Boys. In 1944, Richardson, a second lieutenant in Army Intelligence, was assigned to the top secret Ultra Project at Bletchley Park (north of London), where he learned that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was scheduled to address the British Parliament on the status of the war effort in the Balkans. Wearing his US Army uniform and using identification papers from the U.S. Embassy, Richardson talked his way through multiple layers of security and was escorted to a seat in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery next to the Archbishop of Canterbury. By the end of the war, he was a First Lieutenant and had been awarded two service stars.