Wartime Wednesday: 6888 Central Postal Battalion
Last week I posted a Facebook image about the 6888th
Central Postal Directory Battalion, and quite a few people indicated they were
unfamiliar with these ladies, so I thought I’d do a bit of research and share
it with you.
There were 855 women in the battalion, and they were
the only all-black, all female to serve overseas during WWII. Nick-named the
six-triple eight, their motto was “no mail, no morale.” According to the
battalion’s website, by February 1945 there were millions of pieces of mail
stashed in a warehouses in Birmingham, England that should have been
distributed to members of the armed forces, Red Cross workers, and U.S.
government employees. Incoming letters and parcels added to the massive backlog
of Christmas packages and correspondence.
In addition to vague addresses (e.g. “Junior, US
Army), the constant movement of troops, and common names (there were 7,500
Robert Smiths alone), mail delivery was difficult at best. One general
estimated it would take six months to wade through the mail.
Mary McLeod Bethune (a civil rights activist best known
for starting a school for African-American students in Florida) contacted First
Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to find out if there was a way Black women could serve
overseas and in more meaningful roles. Mrs. Roosevelt succeeded in influencing
leaders in the Women’s Air Corp to integrate their ranks, and in 1944 the war
department pulled together all the African-American women from the WACs, the
Army Air Force, and the Army Services Forces to create the 6888 Battalion.
The women trained at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, then
traveled to Camp Shanks, New York to be deployed. They were sent over in “batches”,
and the first group arrived in Glasgow, Scotland on Valentine’s Day, 1945. The
trip across the ocean was dicey, and the ship was forced to dodge German
U-boats as they traveled. Transported to Birmingham, they faced unheated and
poorly-lit warehouses jammed to the rafters with mail. Rats had helped
themselves to rotting food in the packages.
Bundled in long johns and extra layers of clothing,
the women worked round-the-clock in eight-hour shifts seven days a week. In
order to keep track of servicemen with identical names, over seven million
information cards were created that included serial numbers. In addition,
battalion members investigated insufficiently addressed items for clues as to
how to deliver them. They were also responsible for returning mail to the
families of those who had died.
By processing 65,000 per shift, the 6888 cleared the
backlog in three months. With their project complete, they were sent to France
where they arrived shortly after V-E day. Discovering another two year backlog
of mail, the women got to work. Unfortunately, over 200 women were eligible for
discharge in January 1946, so the workforce was reduced. The remaining members
of the battalion were sent home the following month.
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