Memorial Day is marked by parades and events that honor America’s military. There are still a lot of WW II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans that take part, as well as those that served since those large-scale wars. But not so many realize there was a significant all Black women battalion that played a major role in World War II. Now they are being remembered – an honored – in a new documentary.
When Anna Mae Robertson and her fellow soldiers arrived in England early in 1945, millions of pieces of mail and parcels destined for homesick American troops gathered dust in postal bags piled high in warehouses. Knowing the importance to morale of letters and packages from home, commanders gave the difficult task of sorting through a months-long backlog of mail to the Women’s Army Corps 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The women devised a system, rolled up their sleeves and got to work. “We worked in shifts around the clock. You had to find the right name and address,” Robertson, 95, recalls. The hard work and critical role played by the battalion of African-American women during World War II is spotlighted in a new documentary by a filmmaker from Wisconsin. Jim Theres filmed interviews with the last seven survivors of the unit for his documentary, “The Six Triple Eight,” which will be shown at the War Memorial Center in Milwaukee on June 6.
Arriving in Birmingham, England, in February 1945 after their convoy across the Atlantic was rerouted because of German U-boats, postal battalion soldiers quickly organized a system to find troops who had been on the march since the D-Day invasion. Some letters were simply addressed “Junior, U.S. Army,” rats and mice had gnawed into parcels packed with baked goods, and tracking down the 7 million American GIs in Europe was incredibly difficult. But the 855 women in the Six Triple Eight figured it out, processing 65,000 pieces of mail during each eight-hour shift. They worked in unheated buildings with windows darkened because of nightly attacks by German pilots and V-2 rockets.
Some of the women were assigned the sad task of returning mail sent to troops killed before their letters from home reached them. The six-month backlog was cleared in half the time. Since the Army was still segregated, they lived and ate in barracks apart from other American soldiers with battalion members assigned to handle their own motor pool and chow hall. “These are the stories that got stuck in the nooks and crannies of history. When people hear about this, their reaction is almost universally the same: ‘Wow, I didn’t know about that’,” said Theres, a Racine native.
All seven surviving veterans Theres could track down agreed to take part in the movie. Theres wondered if the women would talk about the racism and sexism they experienced at home and in the military. “But they talked about the good things that happened in Birmingham (England), their sense of mission, how proud they were to find homes for millions of pieces of mail,” Theres said. “That was their focus. That made the conversations just so engaging. It was really wonderful.”
Early in 1946, the unit returned to the U.S. from France and was quietly disbanded. There were no parades, no recognition, no medals. Not until 2014, with the intervention of Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), did these Black female soldiers receive recognition. Robertson, for example, finally received the Women’s Army Corps Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal and the Honorable Service Lapel Button WW2. “The Six Triple Eight” documentary about the only all-female African American battalion deployed overseas during World War II will be shown on June 6 at the War Memorial Center in Milwaukee. The event is free.
