Operation Deep Freeze (’56-57 and ’68)
February 24th, 2012 Tags: 
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RMCS Dale Powell
My Dad was RMCS Dale Lee Powell (Sr) and he served in the U.S. Navy for 22 years, retiring in 1974. While he served at many commands during his time, I can say that the highlight of his Naval career was Operation Deep Freeze in Antarctica, which he did “twice”, the first in 56-57 and the 2nd in 67-68. Sadly, he is no longer with us and he passed away on 11Jun2005 at the age of 69. To me, he was always just my Dad, but I remember some of his Navy days since I was his first born of 5 Navy brats, and he didn’t retire until I was 13. My name is Dale L Powell Jr, and I followed my dad’s footsteps in the Navy and served as an ET, retiring in 2000.
I went to 8 different schools between Kindergarten and the 9th grade, and back in elementary school when we still had “Show and Tell”, my Dad would come with a box of Kodak slides, his Antarctic clothing, a mail drop parachute, an old morse code key, and some interesting stories to go with it all. But over the years, all his memoirs disappeared into some old footlockers he stored in an old, vacant adobe house he owned in New Mexico.
After he passed-away, we began to go though many of his things and found out my Dad was a closet pack-rat. He even had old cancelled checks from the 60’s. I ended up with many old photos and several boxes of Kodak slides, many of which are some of the very pictures on this website. I mostly wanted them because I thought he would be pictured in them, but he must of been the one holding the camera, so I don’t have many with him in them. Once his old shipmates started having ADFA Reunions, he always looked forward to attending, but as the years passed, so did some of them. He was only 19 during his first Deep Freeze, which was some 56 years ago, so many of the more senior guys still with us are now up in their years.
RM2 Dale Powell
About the Pictures
Anyway, these pictures aren’t exactly pristine photogenic masterpieces. They are just everyday pictures taken by one of the men who served there. They were scanned from slides that were not stored in a perfect environment and have weathered a bit over the years, but I hope they bring back some memories for his old Navy buddies and their families. It will be a slow process scanning them all and resizing them for the internet, so this will be a journey for me as I help rejuvenate my Dad’s Antarctic legacy.
If You Find a Mistake
I am trying to piece together events from information, some of which was before my time, so if I made any mistakes, kindly send me an email through the Contact form on this website and I will be glad to correct it.
Some of the names are probably spelled wrong because I had a hard time reading my Dad’s faded handwriting. But many of them don’t have any descriptions at all, so I won’t be able to say much if anything about them, but please feel free to leave comments if you know any details.
Also, if you know of any other websites out there that have pictures of my Dad or are relevant to this website, please leave a link in your comment.
Thank you,
Dale Powell Jr
ET1(SW) USN Ret
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