Mail Call: Fort Oglethorpe WACS delivered
Recently, Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas introduced an interesting piece of legislation: the ”Six Triple Eight” Congressional Gold Medal Act. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate before being held in the House of Representatives where a similar bill is waiting to be voted on.
These bills are compelling due to the people they recognize: the women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the first and only African-american Women’s Army Corps unit to be deployed overseas during the Second World War.
During World War II, old-fashioned “snail mail,” was the primary method of moralebuilding connection and communication between service members and their families back home. So, when mail sent to soldiers serving in Europe got backed up by several months, the Army knew it had a severe problem. Enter the women of the “Six Triple Eight.”
In 1943, President Roosevelt officially created the Women’s Army Corps. While the corps recruited women from various racial and ethnic backgrounds, they were predominantly white and strictly segregated like the rest of the Army.
While white WAC units were deployed to both the European and Pacific fronts as early as 1942 when the Corps was still auxiliary and separate from the regular Army, African-american units were not.
However, reports from the European Theater of Operations discussing a continued lack of “qualified postal officers” and constant pressure from African-american advocacy groups caused the War Department to reverse that decision. So, in November 1944, they recruited the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.
When the women arrived in Birmingham, England, in February 1945 after completing basic training at Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., they found over 17 million pieces of mail, stacked to the ceiling of warehouses, sometimes addressed as vaguely as “Junior, U.S. Army.”
They worked around the clock, in three eight-hour shifts a day, seven days a week, wearing extra layers of clothes under their coats to keep out the winter chill in unheated, poorly lit warehouses, alongside rats the size of cats that had gorged themselves on holiday goodies sent months before.
They maintained over 7 million identification cards to keep track of specific service members, like the over 7,500 Robert Smiths serving in Europe at that time. They were tasked with redirecting mail labeled “undeliverable” and returning mail sent to now-deceased service members.
It was a monumental task that one general estimated would take six months to complete. They did it in only three.
While fighting an unwieldy mountain of mail, they also battled prejudice at nearly every turn.
While stationed in Birmingham, Maj. Charity Adams — the first black woman ever commissioned in the U.S. Army and the unit’s commanding officer — was ordered to assemble all off-duty personnel for inspection. According to Adams’s memoir, since their schedule meant only one-third of them were awake, off-duty, and assembled, the general conducting the inspection reprimanded Adams for not having all her troops there and threatened to bring in a white first lieutenant. Her response of “over my dead body, Sir” nearly earned her a court-martial.
The unit’s military police officers were also denied the ability to carry firearms when guarding their facilities and had to take it upon themselves to learn jiu-jitsu to keep unwanted visitors from their barracks.
Adams and the “Six Triple Eight” also confronted racism outside the Army while overseas. As segregation was not the law in England, the women had been staying in integrated hotels while in London on leave. However, the American Red Cross then renovated a new, segregated, hotel specifically for them. Adams organized a boycott and proudly recalled later that to her knowledge, not a single member of the unit ever stayed there.
After finishing their mission in Birmingham, the unit was transferred to France to deal with a postal backlog there, where they finished out their overseas tour of duty. Upon returning to the States in 1946 the unit was quietly disbanded without ceremony.
Despite their ground-breaking service to this country, they were never formally recognized by the U.S. government for their work. Now they are getting their chance.
These women not only played a largely understated role in keeping America’s military in Europe ready for combat but also paved the way for future generations of women, especially women of color, to serve in the military. Their recognition and our gratitude are long overdue.
Just as they saw it as their duty to put on a uniform and stand up against oppression for us, it is our duty to stand up for them, and get them the Congressional Gold Medal that they frankly earned long ago.
Visit House.gov to find your representative and their contact information to voice your support for the “Six Triple Eight” Congressional Gold Medal Act.