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Hello and welcome back to Behind the Powder Podcast with me, Paulson Victoria. So I took around a two-month break. I was quite burnt out, and it had come up to the Nordic model in Scotland where Parliament was gonna see if the bill would pass. And so there was a lot of media, there was a lot of nerves, there was it was very hectic, and I honestly just couldn't focus. So that's why I haven't done anything for two months. I should be back to doing this weekly. I'm very excited. Uh I will be doing an episode just where I talk about how Parliament was, but today we shall be talking about the sixth Triple Eight Postal Battalion. So in the waning months of World War II, the eight hundred and fifty-five women of colour who comprised the sixth Triple Eight Central Postal Directory Battalion, eight hundred and twenty-four enlisted soldiers and thirty-one officers completed a time-sensitive mission. They only had six months in the European theatre of operations. Army leadership believed their success would be key to boosting morale amongst the seven million war-wary American service members, US government personnel, and the Red Cross workers stationed throughout Europe in 1945. You have to think a lot of men were going to war, not realizing what was actually going to happen. There was so much propaganda about how amazing the war is and easy, and you didn't know the reality of war until you were in the pits. There were nearly half a million deaths between the years of 1941 to 1945 of just US soldiers. Lovers turned into widows without ever knowing what had come of their beloved, and mothers wept as they lost contact with their sons. The mission for the 6888 was simple to label sort and clear millions of pieces of mail, including letters, photographs and gifts that had been stockedpiled and left languishing in warehouses for months, even years. Seventeen million pieces of mail. One general predicted it would take six months to process the massive backlog of undelivered mail. Yet the battalion, nicknamed Six Triple Eight, managed to do it in just three. So this is their story. The story of Six Triple Eight, Central Postal Directory Battalion is a tale of adventure, hard work, and success against all the odds. But it is also one of the incredible resilience and perseverance in the face of deeply entrenched racial and sex inequality. Though many of the women of the Six Triple Eight joined the army for the opportunities it offered, for travel, education, and a regular paycheck, the desire for social change remained a strong undercurrent that unified the individual women into a cohesive and resilient unit. Alice Dixon, a straight talking former corporal with the Six Triple Eight Battalion, said it most plainly as she reflected on her experience as a young woman. Quote, we're all human whether black, white, red, or brown, and we all have something to offer. The Six Triple Eight's achievements are remarkable, considering the fraught social and political climate of the time. Indeed, the women of the Sixth Triple Eight Postal Directory Battalion proved to be pioneers in military service during an era when racial segregation was lore and few opportunities were available to women to work outside the domestic sphere. Now, I really wanted to do this story after watching the Six Triple Eight movie. It was recently on Netflix, and I just wanted to dive deeper, and I don't like I know I'm just a podcast, but I do have listeners and I wanted people to learn about them and understand the history and realize that they didn't get enough credit and they were massively, massively shamed upon and snobbed at. The 6888 had 855 women and was led by Major Charity Adams. It was the only black and multi ethnic US Women's Army Corps unit sent overseas during World War II. The group motto was no male, low morale. The battalion was organized into five companies, headquarters and companies A, B, C, and D. Most of the Six Triple Eight worked as postal clerks, but others were cooks, mechanics, and held other support positions, so that the 688 was a self-sufficient unit. Women are very self-sufficient. Men during this time were very sexist. Even if you were white, you still were seen as a household maid and belonged in the kitchen. The scrutiny was even worse if you didn't fit the mould of what a man envisioned. A woman being, you were done for. You had no chance. Quite simply put, a lot of racists. Like it was it was it was just so normal to be a dick. To be racist so blatantly. It was I couldn't imagine how horrible it was. And we still haven't fully gotten rid of racism in 2026. But that's a different story. Education, educational and employment opportunities remained limited for women in the 1940s, and especially so for African American women. Racial biases, segregation policies, and dehumanizing indignities, particularly in the South, created daunting barriers to women seeking jobs outside the domestic sphere. Even those who completed their education and were qualified for teaching or other professional jobs found it difficult to find appropriate positions open to them. Thus, joining the Women's Army Corps was an attractive option for many women seeking education, economic stability, and a bit of adventure. The war also offered an opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism and contribute to women's uplift. As Buffoon had called her efforts to improve the lives of black women, we're gonna go even more into who Buffoon was later on. Elaine Bennett joined the WAC, quote, because I wanted to prove to myself and maybe to the world that we, African Americans, would give what we had back to the United States as a confirmation that we were full fledged citizens. Quote, I guess we got patriotic, carried away, and we enlisted. And so that's really how it was. That feeling of wanting to do something. Ultimately, it is estimated that 150,000 women served in the WAAC slash WAC during the war, about 4% of whom were African American. While most women were placed in administrative and clerical positions, many also served as cooks, chauffeurs, and mechanics among a wide variety of other non-combatant jobs. During World War II, there was a shortage of soldiers who could manage the Postal Service for the US Army overseas. In 1944, Mary McLeod Buffoon worked to get the support of the First Lady Elnor Roosevelt for, quote, a role for black women in the war overseas. Black newspapers too challenged the US Army to, quote, use black women in meaningful army jobs. So let's take a detour. I really want to highlight who the amazing Mary McLeod Buffoon was. She was born July 10, 1875. She was an American educator, a philanthropist, humanitarian womanist, and civil rights activist. Buffoon founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935 and proceeded to establish the Afro-American Women's Journal, which was the flagship journal of the organization. She presided over other African American women's organizations, including the National Association for Colored Women. Buffoon became the first black woman to lead a federal agency when she was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the Secretary to Lead the National Youth Association, NYA. She started a private school for African American students, which later became Buffoon Cookman University. She was the only African-American woman to hold an official position with the US delegation that created the United Nations Charter. McLeod also held a leadership position for the American Women's Voluntary Services, which was founded by Alice Frockmorton McLean. Buffoon wrote prolifically, publishing in seven periodicals from 1924 to 1955. Mary MacLeod Buffoon joined the Equal Suffrage League, which was an organization branched off of the National Association of Colored Women in 1912. The Southeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, eventually renamed as the Southeastern Association of Colored Women's Clubs, elected Buffoon as president after its first conference in 1920 at the Tuskegee Institute. They intended to reach out to Southern Women, specifically white women, for support and unity in gathering rights for black women. The women met in Memphis, Tennessee to discuss interracial problems. Buffoon also served as the president of the Southeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs from 1920 to 1925, which worked to improve opportunities for black women. In 1935, Buffoon founded the National Council of Negro Women in New York City, bringing together representatives of 28 different organizations to work to improve the lives of black women and their communities. Buffoon said of the council, the National Youth Administration was a federal agency created under Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, WPA. It provided programs specifically to promote relief and employment for young people. It focused on unemployed citizens aged 16 to 25 years who were not in school. Buffoon lobbied the organization so aggressively and effectively for minority involvement that she earned a full-time staff position in 1936 as an assistant. She co-founded the United Negro College FundCF on April 25, 1944 with William J. Trent and Frederick D. Patterson. The UNCF is a program which gives many different scholarships, mentors, and job opportunities to African American and other minority students attending any of the 37 historically black colleges and universities. Buffoon helped with its initial fundraising efforts, which gathered around $900,000 in just six months. Buffoon continued to refer philanthropists to the fund, and she joined the board of directors in 1952. After working on the presidential campaign for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, she was appointed as a national advisor and worked with Roosevelt to create the Federal Council on Colored Affairs, also known as the Black Cabinet. Honors included the designation of her home in Daytona Beach, Florida, as a natural historic landmark, and a 1974 statue as quote, the first monument to honor an African American and a woman in a public park in Washington, DC. So now we go back to the story of the 688. The women who signed up went to basic training in Georgia. Women who were already in the WAC, like Alice Dixon, served at various locations, including the Pentagon, before they joined the 688. Once they entered service, black WACs faced segregation, racism, and retaliation. Often, the women were assigned to menial tasks despite extensive training or education. One woman, Vera Knapp, was accepted into the WAC as in the auxiliary aircraft warning service. She underwent seven months of extra training for her new role. However, after completing training she was told that Negro enrollment in the aircraft warning service of the WAC was not presently being accepted. Other women documented open racism from their white superior officers. One white WAC at Fort Devins, Massachusetts was quoted as saying, quote, I don't want any black WACs as medical technicians. They are here to mop walls, scrub floors, and do the dirty work. This quote dirty work resulted in several black WACs being demoted from medical technician to orderly, despite their training and background. Four women who disobeyed orders and refused to do the work of an orderly were dishonorably discharged and sentenced to one year of hard labor. Thankfully, the Judge Advocate General Office of Boston voided the case less than a month later. Despite diverse backgrounds, members of the 6888 shared their experience of being stigmatized as women of color in a predominantly white male institution. African American men and later white women were regularly deployed overseas. But black WACs were kept out of these assignments until targeted political pressure forced the War Department to reverse its stance. Political motives alone, however, do not explain the excitement these women felt about going overseas. Many were still in their teens and twenties and had experienced little outside their hometowns or home states, and so they were eager to see another part of the world. Members of the 6AA assembled at the Extended Field Service Battalion, 3rd WAC Training Center, Fort Orglethorpe, Georgia, to receive training and to be outfitted for overseas duty. Training was comprehensive and intense. Gladys Carter remembers, quote, we had to climb ropes and come down the side of a ship, as would if it was sinking. We had to do some crawling under wire, we had to put on gas masks, so that was part of it. A lot of marching and just getting ready, getting outfitted, that kind of thing. However, none of the women were told what their assignments would be, where they were going, or when they were going to leave. All of the women fought highly of their battalion commander, Major Charity Adams. Even if they had not trained under her, they knew of her because she was one of the two highest ranking African American women in uniform at that time. After Battalion Commander Charity Adams and her executive officer Captain Abby Noel Campbell's departure to Europe, members of the Sixtrae followed in two waves. The Sixth Triple Eight left the United States on february third, nineteen forty-five, sailing on the Fast Liner Isle de France, and arriving in Greenook near Glasgow on february twelfth. The Isle de France encountered several German U-boats on the trip, forcing the ship to take evasive manoeuvres, but reached Scotland safely. The battalion was transported by train to Birmingham. On february fifteenth, the unit was inspected and marched in review before before Lieutenant General John CH Lee, Commanding General, Communications Zone, European Theatre of Operations, and Major General Robert McGowan Little John, Chief Quartermaster. ETO whose responsibilities including the mail. Nearly two months later, the second contingent of WACs arrived in England. Conditions were harsh in Birmingham. Yes, Birmingham, I couldn't imagine it's any better from what it is now. With the women working around the clock in three eight hour shifts in the cold and dimly lit warehouses where several million pieces of mail were stacked from floor to ceiling. Now keep in mind that they had no idea what they were doing until basically when they got there. They had no idea that this is what they're doing? Sorting mail? Some of the mail was mildewed or had been picked over by rats looking for the bits of food that had been wrapped and sent by loved ones to their soldiers overseas. To process the mail, the soldiers updated and maintained millions of locator cards containing the serial numbers and location of all American personnel stationed in Europe. They became detectives searching envelopes for clues to determine the intended recipient. As Adams recalled, quote, after a few weeks on the job, some of the women had developed great skill in putting the packages back together. Now you have to remember everybody was against these women. All the lieutenants, the colonels, everybody kind of honestly set them up to f try and fail. In a way they kind of wanted them to fail. So they could just laugh even more and scrutinize and be racist against women of color. They didn't actually think they'd do it. The 6888 devised their own system to handle the backlog of mail. This included creating and maintaining a card index, which ultimately contained seven million cards of people with the same or similar names, using military serial numbers to distinguish between them. The 6888 worked seven days a week in three shifts to process and deliver mail to troops fighting in Europe. Each shift handled an estimated 65,000 pieces of mail. In total, the unit handled mail for over 4 million military and civilian personnel and cleared backlogs in the UK and France. Through hard work and dedication to getting the warfighters their mail, the 6888 cleared the backlog in Britain in only three months. In May 1945, the battalion sailed across the English Channel to help with another mail backlog. They would head to Rouen, France, where a mailed jam contained a correspondence that was up to three years old. Though the task may have seemed daunting, by October 1945, the battalion had cleared it. And they were moved to Paris. Myrtle Roden recalled, We found the same condition in France that we had found in England. The mail had been held for months. There was mail that was two or three years old. In France, the women worked alongside French civilians and German POWs, prisoners of war, to accomplish their objective. The new recruits found the work challenging as non-native English speakers. Despite the challenge, the women cleared the backlog in five months. The arrival of a significant number of American women on the continent attracted the attention of both white and black servicemen, who, quote, suddenly found that they had business in Rouen, according to Adams. Of their time in France, Adams fervor recalled, quote, we enjoyed visiting the other towns and villages. There were all sorts of festivals. The unit was able to also be able to participate in recreational activities including tennis, ping pong, softball, and basketball. On February 27, 1946, the remaining soldiers in the unit boarded the Clay Mount Victory for a return to the United States. The unit was disbanded at Fort Dix, New Jersey without any further ceremony. Members of the unit received the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Women's Army Corps Service Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. The 6888 weren't met with celebrations in the streets. Nothing like that. It was like people had forgotten about all the male. There was hardly any thanks. There was many challenges in the 6AA that they had to learn how to navigate, overcome, and defeat. Early on in the operation, a general attempted to send an officer to quote, tell them how to do it right. But Major Adams responded, quote, sir, over my dead body, sir. By the time the same general visited the unit in France, his attitude had changed, and he appreciated the six Triple Eight's accomplishments. The battalion finished what was supposed to be a six-month task in three months in May of 1945. The battalion lived and worked in temporary wooden buildings at King Edward School in Edge Baston, which had been requisitioned in 1939 by the British War Office for use by the British and US armies. The 32 officers lived in free houses opposite, and because the 648 was a segregated unit, the women slept and ate in different locations from the white male soldiers. Cold weather when they arrived meant the women had to wear coats and extra clothes when working in the unheated temporary buildings. There was evidence of sexist and racist treatment by male soldiers. Some of the women felt that the European local people treated them better than people did in the United States. A male chaplain working at Birmingham caused problems for Adams, ordering her soldiers to report to his office to help him and be counseled instead of reporting to work, causing them to be considered absent without leave. AWOL. Adams had to quote counsel him to leave the women alone, quote, reminding him that she was in charge of the women's assignments. World War II marked a turning point in the status of radical minorities and women in the United States, armed services. The critical need for personnel during World War II was a major driving force behind overdue changes in race and sex policies in the military and other American institutions. Their achievements might not have been celebrated with victory parades or a public recognition of their service, but their accomplishments encouraged the General Board, United States Forces, European Theatre to adopt the following in their study of the Women's Army Corps. The national security program is the joint responsibility of all Americans, irrespective of colour or sex. The continued use of colour along with white, female military personnel is required in such strength as proportionally appropriate. In recent years the Six A have received renewed attention due to the women themselves, their family members who have dedicated themselves to preserving their legacy. In 1989, Charity Adams early published their memoir, quote, One Woman's Army, about her service. In addition, members have taken part in unions and public recognitions honouring their achievements. On February 25, 2009, the battalion was honored at the Women in Military Service for American Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The event was attended by three former members of the 6 Triple 8, Alice Dixon, Mary Ragland, and Gladyshuster Carter. Dixon and Ragland were also honored by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in 2009. On March 15, 2016, the Sixth Reflect Central Postal Directory Battalion was inducted into the U.S. Army Women's Foundation Hall of Fame. Battalion veteran Elise Garris attended the induction ceremony. On November 30, 2018, Fort Leavenworth dedicated a monument to the women of the Six Triple Eight. Five women from the battalion, Mabiel Campbell, Elizabeth Johnson, Leanne King, Anna Robertson, and Dolores Ruddock were present at the dedication. In 2018, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas dedicated a monument to the 6888. The following year, the unit was awarded a Menitorious Unit Commendation. In March 2022, the 855 women assigned to the 688 Central Postal Directory Battalion were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Signed into public law by President Joe Biden, the 6888 Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2021 recognizes the outstanding achievements of the battalion, not only for the successful completion of their mission at the end of World War II, but for their sustained collective pursuit of racial and sex equality in the face of significant social and political barriers. Speaking of the 688, retired Colonel Edna W. Cummings declared, The Congressional Gold Medal is the nation's gratitude for the 688 Battalion and the thousands of African-American women who served in the Army during World War II. Their service will never be forgotten as soldiers and trailblazers for gender and racial equality. On May 13, 2019, US Ambassador to the UK Woody Johnston presented a blue plaque to King Edward School to commemorate the 6888's achievements while in Birmingham. The plaque is now on the itinerary of guided tours organized by Birmingham's Black Heritage Walks Network. On february twelfth, twenty twenty one, US Senators Jerry Moran and Jackie Rosen introduced bipartisan legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal who were assigned to the Sixth Triple Eight, Representative Gwen Moore inducted the companion legislation in the House where it passed unanimously. President Biden signed the bill on March 14, 2022. Living members of the battalion were honored in their hometowns. On April 27, 2023, Fort Lee, Virginia became Fort Gregg Adams in a ceremony that renamed the base after two black officers whose struggle paved the way for a more inclusive military. Lieutenant General Arthur Gregg and Lieutenant Colonel Charity Adams. Gregg, the first African American to achieve such a high rank, retired in 1981 after serving as the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff Logistics. At the resignation ceremony, Major General Mark Simili stated They led with dignity, they looked the part, they maintained their composure, and they led by example. In short, these two epitomized the professional qualities we seek in every leader who wears the uniform of the United States Army. One year later, the U.S. Army Women's Museum on Fort Greg Adams opened a new exhibit on the 688. Courage to deliver the women of the 688 Central Postal Directory Battalion was created in partnership with descendants of the unit. One speaker at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the exhibit summed up the unit's exemplary work. Quote, they fired no shots and they fought no battles, and yet their courage and their dedication achieved a different kind of victory. Almost 80 years later, the 6888 continues to stand as a testament to the outstanding achievements of black women soldiers throughout US Army history. Only five members survived until 2024. Gladys E. Blunt, Romee Davis, Fanny McClendon, Lynne King, and Anna Mae Robertson. Now there were women who did lose their lives in the 6888, and they were Mary H. Bankston, Mary Jewel Barlow, Dolores Mercedes Brown. Bangston and Barlow died at the scene of a Jeep accident in July 8. On July 8, 1945. Sergeant Dolores M. Brown succumbed to her injuries five days later on July 13, 1945. These three women are buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colville-Surmer, France. They are among only four American women buried in that cemetery, which holds more than 9,000 graves. Because the War Department did not cover funeral costs for these women at the time, their comrades in the 6888 raised funds to ensure they were laid to rest with proper honors. Now, I hope everybody has enjoyed listening to this podcast episode about the 6888 Postal Battalion. They were all amazing women who will definitely always go down in history as helping pave the way for black and multi-ethnic women in not just the army but in the world. Thank you very much for listening. This has been Paulson Victoria. If you have enjoyed this episode, then please leave a like and review and go check out my overlinks. Alright.

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