Feb 23, 2020 3 min read

“No mail, low morale.” – Motto of the WAC 6888th Battalion

If you think postal carriers have it tough swiftly completing their appointed rounds during rain, snow, heat or gloom of night, imagine the task before the 6888th Central Postal Battalion of the Women’s Army Corp, or the “Six Triple Eight” as this unit of all-black females – 824 enlisted women, 31 officers – was called. To this day, the 6888th is the largest group of black servicewomen to serve overseas in a military capacity.

After intense training in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., which included jumping over trenches and crawling under logs, they arrived in Birmingham, England, in February 1945 to take on the task of sorting out and delivering mail to the lonely, information-starved American soldiers fighting in World War II.

Not only were there nearly 90 million pieces of mail waiting for them – most mail had sat in warehouses during the first several years of the war – many of the addressees were simply a nickname, like “Junior,” and the address was “U.S. Army.” Further, many thousands of soldiers had the same name; some 7,500 soldiers were “Robert Smith.”

“We had to sort it out,” said 6888th member Alyce Dixon.

Which they did. Working in unheated buildings and dodging hungry rats, the 6888th was divided into three eight-hour shifts that worked around the clock, seven days a week, sorting the mail and attempting to determine, not always successfully, the correct names and addresses. It was also their unhappy job to return mail to the families, friends and loved one of dead soldiers. Fortunately, they were treated wonderfully by the Birmingham citizens, even being regularly invited to afternoon tea.

Which was one additional motivation for them to do their best. After all, since the British treated them equally as humans, so too should their fellow Americans, especially given their war-time sacrifice. As African-American women, they represented not just a change in the racial make-up of the army, but the gender make-up as well. What the all-black Tuskegee Airmen were to black American males, the 6888th was to black females – but both were representative of black America, and should they fail, it would only reinforce the stereotype that blacks were unequal in abilities and therefore should remain unequal in accorded rights.

Alas, their service initially went unacknowledged when they returned home. But finally, due to the efforts of several African-American historians and organizations, this week (Feb. 25) in 2009, they were honored at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

Among those honored was the then-101-year-old Alyce Dixon, known to the other 6888th members as the “Queen Bee,” who died at age 108, making her America’s oldest female WWII veteran.