“As a small boy in Marlton, I would ask my dad if I could go get my haircut just to go down to the barbershop and listen to the war veterans tell their tales. They would sit around the old wood stove, spit tobacco and discuss Normandy Beach. That stuff fascinated me,” Bruce Powell said.
Powell, who has dedicated his life to keeping his father’s World War II memories alive, resides in Tabernacle. His father, Elwood C. Powell, lived in Pennsauken and enlisted for the “duration of the war” from 1943 to 1945. He served with George S. Patton’s 4th Armored Division, 35th Tank Battalion, Company B and was instrumental in ending the “Battle of the Bulge.”
Powell has precisely recreated these scenes in miniature form. His dioramas honor his father’s courageous service as a tank driver during the war.
Bruce also went on to serve his country proudly with two tours in Vietnam from 1964 to 1970. He was even once a docent on the USS Battleship New Jersey.
When he returned from his final tour, he was not too happy with the government, and that’s what originally sparked the idea of recreating these war stories to help educate the youth.
“The people have forgotten what got us to where we are now. If you ask kids who Gen. Patton was you wouldn’t get an answer, but if you asked who Michael Jackson was, they would jump to it,” Powell said.
About 20 years ago, Powell decided to move to Virginia where he would go on to interview a number of veterans from Virginia and Washington, D.C., many of them being old acquaintances of his father.
He spoke to some Red Tails, some Tuskegee Airmen and many others, soaking up as much information as he could to get a better understanding of the battles.
He also visited a lot of the battle sites he was told about, traveling all over England, to the northern part of France and even to Normandy beach.
“I actually filled a Chapstick container with sand from the farm we grew up on before I left and brought the sand to the Omaha branch of the beach where my father landed with his tank,” Powell said. “It was so rewarding to stand there where my father had once fought for our country and leave a little bit of our sand from the farm back home.”
The war stories he retrieved, and physically visiting the sites his father described, enables Powell to create outstanding artwork.
He spends many months, sometimes even years, creating each intricate detail to ensure a very realistic feel to his dioramas. All his art is completed entirely by himself, working in his machine shop.
His pieces are now on display at his home in Tabernacle, but he originally would cart them around in Virginia when he lived there. Powell would bring them around and give lectures to the kids, relaying stories that were passed down to Bruce from his father.
“The kids couldn’t get enough of it, and it made me happy to see how intrigued they were, so I would educate them about the war,” Powell said.
Powell enjoys giving lectures and showing his dioramas to people of all ages, and you can often catch him guest speaking at different local events.
