Six Triple Eight gets congressional medal for WWII mail service

The only female unit to serve overseas in World War II is receiving a Congressional Gold Medal on Tuesday, exactly 80 years after pulling off an incredible organizational feat.

When the women arrived in Birmingham, England, in February 1945, they were greeted by multiple warehouses full of mail addressed to the roughly 7 million American soldiers and government personnel stationed across Europe, many of whom were frustrated because they hadn’t received any letters for months or even years.

There was so much mail that one general estimated it would take the unit six months to sort and deliver it all, according to the National Museum of the United States Army. But the Six Triple Eight — whose motto was “no mail, low morale” — managed to do it in half the time, even in harsh conditions.

After their success in Birmingham — and the end of the war in Europe — the unit accomplished similar missions in Rouen and Paris, France. And while the unit’s members received several medals upon its return to the U.S. in 1946, there was no welcoming ceremony or public recognition of their service.

The story of the Six Triple Eight has gotten more attention over the decades, including a 2019 Meritorious Unit Commendation from the U.S. Armed Forces, a 2024 film and a yearslong campaign to recognize its members with a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award given by Congress.

The Senate voted on legislation to bestow the award in 2021, and the House unanimously followed suit a year later. Then-President Joe Biden signed the act into law in 2022.

“It never occurred to me that it would happen,” retired Major Fannie McClendon, one of the two surviving veterans of the 855-person unit, said at the time.

However, because of the time required to design and produce the actual medal, the ceremony in the U.S. Capitol wasn’t on the books until recently. Earlier this year, over a dozen senators wrote House Speaker Mike Johnson a letter urging him to “swiftly” schedule the medal ceremony and warning of a “critical juncture.”

“Today, only two members of the Six Triple Eight are known to be alive,” they wrote. “Those still surviving ought to not wait any longer to receive this long-awaited recognition they rightfully deserve.”

In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s ceremony, supporters had even more reason to grow antsy about the lack of recognition.

The Department of Veterans Affairs says that 14 of the unit’s members are interred at Arlington National Cemetery, while 32 are interred in VA national or state veteran’s cemeteries across the country.

The Department of Defense has since restored some of the entries it removed. Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in early April demanding all webpages be restored, including that of the Six Triple Eight.

“Erasing this extraordinary legacy is an egregious betrayal of their service,” Ross wrote, calling it disrespectful to all veterans. “This timing is especially egregious when the country is just starting to appreciate the story of the 6888th.”

A barrier-breaking battalion 

Black women were virtually excluded from military service until the start of World War II, which prompted the creation of what came to be known as the Women’s Army Corps (WAC).

While the WAC opened up opportunities for women in non-combat roles, segregation policies of the time meant that Black WACs could only make up a maximum of 10% of the overall force, the National Museum of the United States Army explains. The U.S. Army was not fully integrated until 1948.

Only about 6,500 of the 140,000 women who served in the WAC during World War II were Black, according to the Department of Defense.

Black organizations and civil rights figures, like Mary McLeod Bethune, pushed for Black women in the WAC to get the same opportunity to serve overseas. Under mounting pressure — and a growing backlog of mail — the War Department created the 6888th in 1944.

The battalion included five companies, commanded by Maj. Charity Adams, who became the highest-ranking Black Army officer during the war. While the Six Triple Eight has often been called an all-Black unit, it had at least two members of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.

After several weeks of training, the women sailed to Scotland — where they were forced to run for cover upon arrival when a German rocket exploded near their dock — and then took a train to Birmingham to begin sorting mail and boosting morale.

Navigating mail, sexism and racism

The battalion was greeted by dimly lit warehouses stacked floor-to-ceiling with undelivered mail, including six airplane hangars full of returned Christmas presents, according to the DoD.

The unit broke into three eight-hour shifts and worked seven days a week. They came up with a system that involved creating and updating millions of locator cards with the serial numbers and locations of American personnel in Europe, searching for clues to suss out intended recipients.

On top of the task at hand, the women of the Six Triple Eight also confronted sexism and racism during their time overseas. They were not allowed into a local club for enlisted soldiers, and Adams led a boycott of the alternative segregated facilities they were offered, according to the National Park Service.

“They decided to run their own food hall, hair salon, and refreshment bar,” it says. “The women were subjected to slander spread about by male soldiers who resented that Black women were allowed in the Army.”

Some Black male service members wrongly assumed the women of the unit had been sent to Europe to provide companionship, the DoD says, a notion they “quickly set straight.”

Some of the Six Triple Eight’s recreational basketball players were invited to play on an Army all-star team, but uninvited when the Army learned of their race. And when three members of the unit died in a Jeep crash, the War Department didn’t provide funds for their funerals — the rest of the women collected the money themselves.

After the war

Upon the unit’s arrival in France, it drew attention from Black and white service members, who — as Adams later recalled — “suddenly found that they had business in Rouen.” They had to increase security around their compound.

With the help of French civilians and German prisoners of war, the unit was able to clear a similar-sized backlog of mail in just five months. In October, the downsized unit — about 300 members had been discharged by then — was sent to Paris to continue the work.

The remaining soldiers were sent back to the U.S. in February 1946, where they received the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Women’s Army Corps Service Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal.

“The unit was disbanded at Fort Dix, New Jersey without any further ceremony,” reads the website of the National Museum of the United States Army.

The museum notes that while the Six Triple Eight may not have been celebrated with parades or public recognition, their achievements prompted the General Board of the U.S. Forces European Theater to recommend the “continued use” of female soldiers of color, “along with white, female military personnel … in such strength as proportionally appropriate.”

Gaining recognition

Over the decades, members of the Six Triple Eight — and increasingly, their surviving family members — gained more recognition for their groundbreaking service.

Some of the women returned to England in 1981 to be honored by Birmingham’s mayor. Adams released her memoir eight years later and was honored by the Smithsonian Institution National Postal Museum the following decade. A monument in the unit’s honor was established at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., in 2018.

Their legacy has also been honored in books and movies, including a 2019 documentary and a 2024 movie, directed by Tyler Perry and starring Kerry Washington as Adams.

Washington and Perry said they worked with a veteran of the unit, Lena King, to better understand the women’s experiences during the war — and why some were ashamed to discuss their experiences afterward. One Florida woman who will be attending Tuesday’s ceremony only learned last year that her late mother was in the battalion, as Spectrum News 13 reported.

King died in January 2024 at age 100. Years earlier, she was already one of the few surviving unit members who could weigh in on its upcoming congressional honor.

“I wish more of the 6888th members were here, and I hope that I’m still here when President Biden signs the bill,” she said in a 2022 release from the office of Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. “That will be a great day.”