Bob Dingle – pathfinder at war and in the Antarctic

Abstract

Bob Dingle (1920–2016) retired in 1975 to Swansea, Tasmania, after an adventurous and peripatetic working life. During the Second World War he served with Bomber Command. He was a wireless operator with 78 and 35 Squadrons, was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Medal and was commissioned. After the war he migrated to Australia and in 1950 joined the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology as a trainee weather observer with the express intention of serving in the Antarctic. Over the next 25 years he wintered seven times with the Australian and United States Antarctic programs, was awarded the Queen’s Polar Medal with two clasps and served as the senior Australian weather observer for four years on the US Navy Ship Eltanin