Operation Deep Freeze LC-130 Support poster art.

For more than four decades, the Naval Squadron VXE-6 had played a vital role in airlifting personnel, scientists and cargo to Antarctica and to various research locations throughout the continent on a variety of ski-equipped C-130 Herculess and Hueys for the National Science Foundation. Operation Deep Freeze is the code name for a series of United States missions to Antarctica. Given the continuing and constant US presence in Antarctica, ‘Operation Deep Freeze’ has come to be used as a general term for all US Military Operations in that continent, and in particular for the regular  missions to resupply all US Antarctic bases during the warmer summer months from September to March every year when the sun never sets and the average temperature ranges from –10 to – 68 degrees, coordinated by the United States military squadron known initially as VX-6 and then ultimately known as VXE-6 until the squadron decommissioned in 1999.