This Women’s History Month, an Eastern Shore historian is illuminating a little-known group of courageous Black women who played a role in World War II. Dr. Clara Small, a professor who has dedicated her life to the history of Black Americans from Delmarva, will give a talk this week about the women who stepped up.
Near the end of the Second World War, photos, letters and moldy food care packages sent by loved ones to U.S. military service people languished for months and even years in European warehouses. To boost morale, Army leadership devised a plan to connect the missing mail with its owners.
It began with the admission of African American women to the Womens Army Corps, a branch of service in which they were initially prohibited from serving.
A sharply-worded letter written by Mary McLeod Bethune, educator and head of the National Council of Negro Women to Secretary of War Henry Stimson may have moved the needle: “We are anxious for you to know that we want to be and insist upon being considered a part of our American democracy, not something apart from it. We know from experience that our interests are too often neglected, ignored or scuttled unless we have effective representation in the formative stages of these projects and proposals…We are incensed!”
When the 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion was created, 19 of its members were from Maryland. Five of the nineteen, Mary Rebecca Jackson, Elaine S. Smith Bennett, Vivian Elzie Taylor, Marian Elzie Wilson and Lucy Pollitt, were from the lower Eastern Shore. It is their story that will be the focus of a March 19 program led by Dr. Clara Small, Professor Emerita of Salisbury University, at the Charles Chipman Center in Salisbury.
Basic training took place at Ft. Oglethorpe in Georgia. The women underwent intense psychological and physical exercises, climbing ropes and scaled the side of a ship as they would if the vessel were sinking. They learned to operate gas masks. But none of them knew what their assignments would be, where they were going, or when they would set sail.
On February 3, 1945, the first group of more than 700 African American members of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) departed the United States on board the Isle de France bound for Glasgow, Scotland. Still unaware of their assignment, from Glasgow they traveled to England to begin the process of sorting and clearing millions of pieces of mail, working three eight-hour shifts in cold, dimly lit conditions.
“The Army didn’t know what to do so they said, ‘Give [the mail task] to them’, Dr. Small says. “But they didn’t know who they were dealing with. These were smart women who devised a way to locate the recipients.” According to the National Museum of the United States Army, the 6888 created 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. According to Major Charity Adams, their battalion leader, “after a few weeks on the job some of the women had developed great skill in putting the packages back together.” In what may have been among their greatest feats, their six-month deadline was reached in three.
At the end of the war the 6888 received the European-African-Middle East Campaign Medal, the Good Conduct Medal and the WWII Victory Medal. For all their hard work and ingenuity, the women faced obstacles throughout their service.
“They encountered racism from officers and enlisted men,” Dr. Small recounts. “Many expected them to fail but they didn’t know these women. Eighty-five percent of them were college educated and many were teachers,” she says, including Adams, a graduate of Wilberforce University who earned degrees in math, Latin and physics. Adams’ military recruitment began when she was enrolled in summer classes at Ohio State University. In 1943 she was promoted to major, one of the highest ranking female officers in the nation. In 1944 Adams was given command of the 6888. Following her overseas service she was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
After the war, there were no parades or fanfare for the 6888. For the most part the women returned to their lives, continuing their education with little to no talk about their service. In 1989, Charity Adams published her memoir, One Woman’s Army. In 2018, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, dedicated a monument to the “Six Triple Eight”. The following year, the unit was awarded a Meritorious Unit Commendation. In March 2022, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Joe Biden. The Six Triple Eight Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2021 “recognizes the outstanding achievements of the Battalion and their sustained collective pursuit of racial and sex equality in the face of significant social and political barriers.”
Karen Taylor, the daughter and niece of two 6888 members, grew up on the Eastern Shore. Her mother was First Lieutenant Vivian Elzie Taylor and her aunt Marian Elzie Wilson. Taylor sought recognition for the women of the 6888, but she says no one would listen or brushed her off, promising “to get back to her.” However, in 2023, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore declared March 9 6888 Day. Taylor attended the ceremony in Annapolis that honored her mother and aunt.
For more information on the March 19 program presented by Dr. Clara Small, check out The 6888 Women from The Shore.
