The cover story in The American Legion magazine (February 2021) told the story of the 6888 WWII battalion. A story retold in the new Tyler Perry Netflix movie about the all-Black female unit that processed a three-year backlog of approximately 17 million pieces of mail.
They were given six months to complete the task, but did it in three. More than 65,000 pieces of mail were handled in each of 3 shifts. “The US service members in Europe took notice that no mail was being delivered and Army officials reported that a lack of reliable mail was hurting morale.” (American Legion 2/21.)
The 6888 stands out because they were the only All-Black unit of women allowed to serve overseas during WWII. Women of color who joined the military often served merely as service workers for whites. Arguably, they fought two wars at once.
The 6888 endured bombing at their Birmingham, England site, cold unheated buildings, and overall poor conditions. When they were moved to France to complete another monumental postal task, they faced the same conditions and were even denied the recreation facilities of the American Red Cross. When the Red Cross made a separate space for the Black women, the 6888 boycotted the segregated facilities. Their final duty was in Paris, France, where they were put in a first-class hotel and treated with dignity and respect. They returned to the US with no parades or fanfare.
My husband’s father’s letter to his wife, written by a Red Cross volunteer, saying that he lost his right foot stepping on a German mine, was most likely handled by the 6888.
Of the four women buried at the American cemetery in Normandy, three are women of the 6888 who died in a Jeep accident after the armistice. Their comrades had to raise money for their caskets.
The women of the 6888 got the job done under adverse circumstances and were finally honored in 2022 when Congress unanimously awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal. Of the 855 soldiers and 21 officers, two are still alive today.
