Alyce Dixon, 108; nation’s oldest female WWII vet

Alyce Dixon, the nation’s oldest female veteran, who expedited mail delivery in wartime and later worked as a civilian at the Pentagon, facilitating what she called the purchase of everything from “pencils to airplanes,” died Jan. 27 at a veterans ’retirement center in Washington. She was 108.

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced the death but did not disclose the cause.

Dixon was working for the War Department’s secretarial pool at the newly constructed Pentagon when in 1943 she enlisted in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, soon to be called the Women’s Army Corps. She was initially limited to administrative assignments in Iowa and Texas before joining the newly established 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in early 1945. The battalion was the only unit of black women in the WACs to serve overseas in World War II and was led by Charity Adams, one of the first black female commissioned officers in the war.