Public Law 117-97 passed March 14, 2022
Six Triple Eight Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2021
July 1, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into legislation the Women’s Army Corps “WAC” as a component of the Army. Auxilliary Corps “WAAC” created in 1942 without official military status.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of the National Council of Negro Women, advocated admittance of African-American women into WAC to serve as officers and enlisted personnel.
“10 percenters”, the recruitment of African-American women into WAAC was limited to 10% to mimic the national population.
Despite an Executive Order by President Roosevelt in 1941 banning racial discrimination in civilian defense industries, the Armed Forces remained segregated. Enlisted women served in separated units, participated, trained, lived, ate, and participated in recreational facilities all segregated away from everyone else. Officers received their training in integrated units but lived seperate. Specialist and technical training schools integrated in 1943. During WW2 a total of 6,520 African-American women served in WAAC and WAC.
Several units allowed white women to serve in the European Theater Operations “ETO” during WW2, African-American organizations advocated to the War Department to allow African-American WAC units to serve overseas.
November 1944, the War Department approved sending African-American women to serve in Europe, and the Army Air Forces was created and designated as the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, which is nicknamed “Six Triple Eight”.
Army officials reported a shortage of qualified postal officers within the ETO. 7 million civilians and military personnel from the United States served in the ETO and many had identical names. One general predicted the backlog in Birmingham, England would take 6 months to process.
6888th arrived in Birmingham February 1945. The Battalion found millions of pieces of mail filling a warehouse all intended for Armed Forced, United States Government personnel, and Red Cross.
The 6888th created effective processes and filing systems to track individual servicemembers, organize “undeliverable” mail, determine recipients for insufficient addresses and handle mail to servicemembers who has died. Their motto “No mail, no morale”, the women averaged 65,000 pieces of mail per shift and cleared the backlog within 3 months.
The 6888th traveled to Rouen, France in May 1945 and worked through a backlog of undelivered mail dating back 3 years.
The 6888th was discontinued on March 9, 1946 in Camper Kilmer, New Jersey.
The accomplishments of the 6888th in Europe encouraged the General Board, United States Forces, European Theatre of Operations to adopt, “The national security program is the joint responsibility of all Americans irrespective of color or sex” and “the continued use of colored, along with white, female military personnel is required in such strength as is proportioantely appropriate to he relative population distribution between colored and white races”.
With the exception is smaller units of African-American nurses who served in Africa, Australia, and England. The 6888th was the ONLY African-American Women’s Army Corps to serve during WW2.
Members of 6888th received these medals for their service;
European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
Women’s Army Corps Service Medal
World War II Victory Medal
In 2019 the Army awarded 6888th the Meritorius Unit Commendation.
Congressional Gold Medal
The Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate will present to Congress a single god medal to represent the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion commonly known as 6 Triple Eight in recognition of
the pioneering military service
devotion to duty
contributions made to increase the morale of all United States personnel stationed on the European Theatre of Operations during WW2.
The Treasury shall strike the gold medal. The medal will be given to the Smithsonian Institution, where the medal will be available for display. Other locations the gold medal will be made available is:
locations associated with the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion
Women in Military Service for American Memorial
United States Army Women’s Museum
National Museum of the United States Army
and any other location deemed appropriate by the Smithsonian Institution,.
Duplicate Medals will be struck in bronze and cost will be determined on overhead expense.
(Chapter 51 Title 31 USC) considered national medals.
(Section 5134 Titale 31 USC) Considered numismatic items.
Authority to use Funds Amounts, Proceeds of Sale: Charged against the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund. the sale of the duplicate medals will be deposited back into the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund.