In this episode of Mailin’ It!, retired U.S. Army Colonel Edna Cummings joins to share the extraordinary story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Listeners will learn how these 855 pioneering women overcame immense challenges to clear a massive backlog of mail for millions of American soldiers during World War II.
In the midst of World War II, a massive mail backlog threatened to cut off news and hope for millions of American soldiers. With morale at a low point, the mission fell to the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all-Black, all-female unit deployed overseas. In this episode, our hosts are joined by retired U.S. Army Colonel Edna Cummings, who has championed the fight to bring their incredible story out of the shadows. Discover how these unsung heroes achieved the seemingly impossible—clearing a two-year backlog of 17 million letters. This is a powerful story of resilience, leadership, and long-overdue recognition you won’t want to miss.
Karla
Hello and welcome to Mailin’ It!, the official podcast of the United States Postal Service. I'm Karla Kirby.
Jeff
And I'm Jeff Marino. Karla, let's get in the right mindset for this episode. Imagine you're a soldier stationed in Europe during World War II. You're far from home and surrounded mostly by strangers. You're living in uncomfortable conditions, and worst of all, you don't know when you're gonna see your loved ones again. How much would you give for a letter or package from home at that moment?
Karla
Well, Jeff, it's hard to put myself in that position, but I'm thinking that mail from home may be just about the only thing to keep me going during the toughest parts of the war.
Jeff
No doubt. Now, imagine those letters stop coming for months at a time because that's exactly what happened to millions of American troops serving in Europe. In 1945. You see a backlog of mail and packages had piled up in military warehouses overseas, which created a logistical nightmare that seriously threatened morale for troops fighting in the war.
Karla
That makes the topic of today's episode even more compelling because we're going to be talking about an extraordinary group of soldiers who stepped into that crisis to save the day. They were the 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only all black, all female battalion from the Women's Army Corps to serve overseas during the war. And the story of what they were able to accomplish is truly inspiring. We are incredibly honored to be joined today by someone who has been instrumental in ensuring that their story is told. Edna Cummings, a retired US Army Colonel and author of A Soldier's Life, a Black Woman's Rise from Army Brat to Six Triple Eight Champion. Colonel Cummings, welcome to Mailin’ It!
Col. Cummings
Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Jeff
So Colonel Cummings, we'd like to start by talking a little bit about you and your interesting military career to help the listeners get to know you a little bit better. So what first inspired you to serve?
Col. Cummings
That's a very good question, and I often ask myself that, but I am a military brat, an army brat specifically, and I was born at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and my father joined in ‘46 and he served in Italy and Korea. So I just grew up hearing all these fantastic stories. And so when I had the opportunity to go to college, women could finally join Army ROTC, the Reserve Officer Training Corps with a chance to become an officer. And that's the only way my father would allow me to join the military. I had to go to college, and so I enrolled in that Army ROTC program. And believe it or not, I was still part of the Women's Army Corps when I graduated, and that was in 1978 because the Women's Army Corps was not disbanded until October of 1978. And I graduated in May, and the purpose of the Corps was to release a man for combat.
Col. Cummings
And at the time, I was the only African American female to start the program. I was the first one, and later on other black women joined. But I had no idea at the time that I was the first to attend that program, the first black female to attend that program. So, you know, after I graduated I had, you know, assignments and my first deployment was in South Korea in 1981. Not really deployment, but martial law was still undergoing. I served at Fort Rucker and, and so all said and done I had more than 25 years of total service and over 20 years of active duty.
Jeff
Well, even today, only about 14% of US Army colonel are women. So you reached a milestone in your military career that relatively few women have achieved, and since leaving active service, you seem to have taken on a new mission of your own as an Army historian of sorts, and specifically the Six Triple Eight. So how and when did you first learn about these women?
Col. Cummings
Well, it was actually by accident. I was online just reading stories and I read about Charity Edna Adams, and that was maybe 2015 or 2016. And I was also supporting a professional organization known as the ROCS who mentor and conduct training for senior officers and civilians. It's a mentoring and professional development organization. And the story inspired me, not only because her name was Edna, but sometimes she said things that she wished she wouldn't have. She was very vocal, but Charity Edna Adams served in the Women's Army Corps during World War II and before the Six Triple Eight, she led troops at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. And I read her book and I felt a strong connection with her story. And then we started working to raise funds for a monument at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. And so through that fundraising, through those activities that I learned about from the organization, I was a part of the ROCS at the time.
Col. Cummings
I just became so inspired by the story and the women who were living at that time, who served in the Six Triple Eight and just, we continued to share their stories and allow the women and those families to share the stories because so many times the families did not understand or they didn't know, or they were unaware of the depth and breadth of the 6888 service. The stories just continue to grow and that's kind of how we got started with a lot of the advocacy through the fundraising for the monument at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Karla
Colonel Cummings, in what ways do you feel like you identify with these women?
Col. Cummings
Aside from being a black woman in the Women's Army Corps, it was such an unusual occurrence. When I joined, I would show up on installations and people just didn't know what to do. They didn't know whether or not to salute. One of my troops actually said, we didn't know they made y'all. And so it was just an interesting time in reading the story of Charity Adams. I just felt such a sense of connection, not only because her name was Edna, she was a black colonel, but she had to really stand up for herself and her soldiers who had what thought was an impossible task. And we'll talk some more about that, but just fighting for the right to serve, fighting for that respect. And even though it was a different era, some of the same challenges existed.
Jeff
Interesting. So let's frame this up for listeners who may be hearing about the 6888 for the first time. Can you tell us who these women were and what was their mission?
Col. Cummings
Well, the 6888 were part of the Women's Army Corps. During World War II, there were over 150,000 women who served in the military, in the Army because the Air Force was part of the army at the time. We also had another 150,000 plus women who served with the Army as a in other capacities. But the 150,000 women in the Army and the Army Air Corps, only about 6,000 6,500 or so were members of the Women's Army Corps. And the Six Triple Eight consisted of 855 handpicked women, black women from the Women's Army Corps, who had various military skills, logistics, clerical operations, and a few had worked in the Post Office. Well, a lot of them had not worked in postal operations. And so the 6888 was the only black unit of the Women's Army Corps battalion sized unit to deploy overseas during World War II.
Col. Cummings
Because during World War II, we had three theaters of war Pacific, European and China Burma India. And because of gender and racial segregation, the theater commanders found it challenging to not only have women, but black women, but because of the backlog of mail in the European Theater of Operations, these women were handpicked. They volunteered to go overseas. So on February 3rd, the Army sent them to England aboard the SSL Ile de France, which was a commercial ship converted to a troop ship. And so they were tasked with sorting warehouses full of mail and undelivered mail and packages, not delivering, but sorting mountains and mountains of, of mail that had been stored in warehouses in aircraft hangers. It was just a daunting task. And when the Six Triple Eight deployed overseas, they were unaware of their mission. So they were not trained as a unit in postal operations.
Karla
So let me, let me wrap my hands around this
Col. Cummings
Well, that's a two part question because Major Charity Adams and her executive officer went over kind of like the advanced party to meet with the leadership primarily Lieutenant General Lee, who was the command of the communication zone. Those are the that's the operations behind the enemy lines in the rear logistics support operations. So Charity Adams, this is an interesting part of the story. She receives this envelope, she and Abby Noah Campbell, about two weeks before the 6888 arrives, they get on the plane and she was told, do not open this envelope until you get on the plane, because the Army didn't want to run the risk of disclosing troop movement. So once Charity Adams got on the plane, she opened the envelope, that's when she found out where she was going. So that's the first part. The second part, speaking with some of the women, the women just really set out on blind faith in the Army says, you are going overseas.
Col. Cummings
They didn't know the mission, didn't know where they were going. And actually while they were on the Ile de France, a German U-boat, chase the ship, the Ile de France, because that's what German U-Boats did at the time. They chased anything crossing the Atlantic from the US. And so these women were in a combat environment before they even reached England. Well, Glasgow, that's where the ship docked. And so some of the women said they didn't know what they were doing, but maybe a few days before they arrived, somebody finally said, Hey, this is what you're going to do. But they hadn't been formally trained in these Postal operations. So yeah, they landed in Glasgow, Scotland, they board the train to Birmingham, England. And what's interesting, as I mentioned that Charity, Adams had met with General Lee prior to the 6888 arrival, and he asked her, could your troops march?
Col. Cummings
And her response was, you never saw better marching troops. Now mind you, she just learned what the mission was. She didn't know anything about these 855 women, but she knew they'd been trained. So she said, sir, you've never seen better marching troops in your life. So two days after
Jeff
Just a quick question. You said millions of pieces of mail were backlogged. Any idea how they, how that happened?
Col. Cummings
Because of D-Day. D-Day was a catalytic battle during World War II, obviously, but it didn't end. The war and D-Day preparation started long before D-Day mail was deliberately stopped because you think about what information is on an address, troop location, first of all. And then secondly, it's just the resource constraints. Vehicles that would have probably carried the mail to Birmingham, England had to be used for combat operations. So just a multitude of factors that caused the mail backlog. And then just by the sheer volume, so you're talking about mail that's been stored in warehouses and aircraft hangers for estimated two to three years. And what's even more interesting, other units had tried and failed to clear the backlog.
Jeff
Can you give us an idea of the scale? You said millions and you said in aircraft hangers and warehouses. So I'm getting a mental picture of a lot of mail, but is there any idea now how much mail is, is actually been backed up?
Col. Cummings
Well, some estimates 17 to 20 million pieces of mail and packages, and the number has been disputed. But what we do know that in 1945 alone about 2.5 billion, that's what could be pieces of mail and package went through the Army Postal Service, but the European Theater of Operations in Birmingham, England, that was the hub of the mail operations. There are more than 7 million Americans to include Red Cross workers, government workers, over 3 million troops stationed in the European Theater or operating in the European Theater of Operations. So you think 7 million Americans passing through a theater of war, just if you wrote your loved one, a letter a week, 7 million people, for a period of years. And they never received that mail because of the stoppage of mail delivery. And again, the 6888 didn't deliver the mail, they just had to sort it so it could be delivered. And one estimate in France, I read an article published in the Afro newspaper in 1945 in January before the Six Triple Eight arrived just in France alone, about 130,000 bags of mail was unloaded prior to the Six Triple Eight's arrival. And that's about 3,600 tons. So that's just in France and that, so that's that, that's a lot of mail, by any stretch of imagination
Karla
So I can't even imagine, you know, to your point, what Major Adams and her unit must have been thinking when they saw all of those warehouses full of mail bags, why was clearing that mail so important to the war effort?
Col. Cummings
I can ask your listeners why is it important to read text messages? Why is it important to take those phone calls? Why is it important for you to call and let someone know that you have arrived someplace safely? That lifts your spirit. Just think about troops on the front line for two years and they haven't heard from their loved ones. Maybe when they left, someone was in love. They don't know if that relationship is still intact. Or family members were expecting so that you have fathers who've never seen their children, never seen a photo. You had mothers who hadn't heard from their sons, and the sons on the front lines hadn't heard from their families. Mail is a force multiplier, just like our communication is. Now, I often say the Six Triple Eight restored vital communication. Now, keep in mind this was in the forties and mail was the primary way troops communicated with their families, and people just have that need for communication. So in wartime, going months and years without being able to see family and friends without being able to have a piece of home, whether it was a Christmas package, a card, or a letter. So mail from home gave our troops something to look forward to and a reason to make it back home. And so restoring reliable mail service, the 6888 sought to improve morale. And that was actually their motto, “No mail, low morale.”
Jeff
Interesting. So now that we know how much mail there was to sort and how important it was to get it delivered, how did Major Adams and the Six Triple Eight unit accomplish it?
Col. Cummings
Well, the Six Triple Eight, first of all, they were only in England about 90 days, and that was the worst of the mail backlog in the European Theater of operation. So the Army said, okay, we'll give you six months to do it, to clear the mail backlog. And keep in mind, other units had tried and failed. So I believe Major Adams had a no fail mission mentality. So over three months after arriving in England and after cleaning up the living quarters and making them inhabitable, the Six Triple Eight set up a shift plan, approximately eight-hour shift. And those of you who have worked shift work knows that an eight hour shift is never just eight hours, but the sake of discussion, we will say three shifts, eight hours, that equals 24 hours, seven days a week. And at peak efficiency, they process for delivery over 65,000 or upwards to 65,000 pieces of mail and packages per shift. And as you know, with workloads fluctuations, but with 17 million pieces of mail and package just in Birmingham, England alone, they work nonstop. They maximize, they optimize the throughput of that mail. And the Army says, all right, you have six months to get it done if you can do it at all, because no one else has been able to do it. But the Six Triple Eight managed to clear that mail backlog in three months, in 90 days, half the time that they were given to actually clear the mail backlog.
Karla
So how were they able to be successful when other units were unable to organize and deliver all of that mail?
Col. Cummings
I believe their success came from the leadership and 855 women, 31 officers, 825 enlisted women. But let's focus on the leadership. Major Adams, I believe she was a MENSA because she graduated from high school at 16, tripled majored in Math, Latin, and Physics. And in my opinion, with that physics and math background, she did some type of systems engineering calculations, you know, and intuitively and instinctively said, how can I optimize throughput? I'm going to turn this unit into a mail processing machine. There was an existing postal network there. So there was a somewhat of a framework, but it had not been successful in optimizing and maximizing the throughput like Charity Adams did. And on not only was Charity Adams super, super intelligent, she was in graduate school, majored in vocational psychology. So with that STEM background, math and physics, she understood what it took to motivate people to get them to work.
Col. Cummings
And then the Six Triple Eight was made up of the best and the brightest women in the nation, because this was post World War II, the literacy levels in the US was under 50%, roughly 40%, meaning that only about 40% of Americans had a high school diploma. And men did not have to have a high school diploma to join the military, but the women did. So the women had to have a higher standard just to join the military. I'm talking about the 150,000 members of the Women's Army Corps, Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, and Women's Air Corps who joined. The Army Air Corps women had to have the higher standard, but within the Six Triple Eight, 85%, I say again, 85% of the Six Triple Eight had college degrees or were former school teachers. And keep in mind, the mail wasn't always addressed as we think of mail being addressed.
Col. Cummings
Now, sometimes the mail contained just nicknames, Buster or Junior, just think about the literacy levels. They didn't know how to write a letter, didn't know how to spell someone's name. So that became part of the challenge as well. So the Army had locator cards, and each locator card had the individual, the troop, the soldier's name, the troops' name, because the army handles mail for everyone in theater of operations. So they had the service member's name and serial number that help the women. When they saw a letter, they tried to align 'em with the locator card, but if that didn't work, they opened the mail to look for context clues. I spoke to one veteran who had to open the letter and she saw a watch, and she saw the soldier's name had been engraved on the watch. And she said, between the information on the letter and what was on the watch, she was able to figure out where that soldier was located. Because keep in mind, this is wartime, troops are moving rapidly throughout the theater of operations, so it's just hard to keep up with troop movement. So that combined with nicknames, over 7,000 Robert Smiths common names, it just took a lot of, I think, creativity, discipline and that willingness to get the job done in order for the women to match the letter or the package with the intended recipient.
Jeff
Well, I could certainly see how you've become fascinated with this story, but was there something that surprised you the most? Or what was it that surprised you the most when you began really digging into the, the story of these women?
Col. Cummings
What surprised me the most was the sense of pride and dedication the women had. This was Jim Crow America, and also women were segregated by not only race, but also it was the Women's Army Corps segregated by gender. And when I spoke with the women, many of them were in their nineties, they had no regrets. They were so, so very proud of their service, proud that they were able to bring some joy to the troops on the front line, proud that they had done their part in the war. So it was such a sense of pride and respect and patriotism, and it was just one common theme. We loved America and we need to take care of our troops, and we want to do our part. And then when they returned to the US, they drew strength from their experiences and continued on with their education. Now, keep in mind that 85% already had college degrees or former school teachers. Some of these women went on to get PhDs and advanced degrees and really contribute to their communities. And something else that surprised me, a lot of the families didn't know about the depth and breadth of the women's experiences who served in the 6888. Many of them have told me, thank you for helping me to learn what my family member and my mother, my aunt, my grandmother did, because they never talked about their service.
Karla
So definitely, you know, I've been fortunate enough to, to hear about the, the 6888. But what interested you in advocating for the group and telling their story?
Col. Cummings
What really interested me was I no longer looked at the story as part of history, but it became more of my heritage. And heritage is a lot more personal because it is something in your life, in this case, my life that I connected with being a black woman officer in Women's Army Corps. People not understanding why I was in uniform and just some of the challenges that women had during that era, just to have the right to serve in uniform, that was something that was not widely accepted in the forties. But then in ‘48 when Truman president Truman passed the Women's Service Integration Act, women then again, could become part of the armed forces. So that, that was something that struck with me just realizing what these women went through and the advocates for them at the time, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, who advocated for black women to serve in the military during that time. So then I just had a greater appreciation for what it took for me to be able to serve. And then my mom told me that one of her friends was in the Six Triple Eight, and so she told me, I better do a good job.
Karla
So Major Cummings, when we look at the story of the Six Triple Eight and what those women went through today and what they accomplished, how does that connect with the world today?
Col. Cummings
Well, a couple of things. I think the 6888 gives us a new set of role models. I see online and even at our Congressional Gold medal ceremonies, little girls are dressing up like the women of the Six Triple Eight, you know, students are doing projects on the Six Triple Eight. And so with that new set of role models, I just think it's also important that families are learning their history and it highlights the challenges that women and women of color have face in the armed forces. Women make up only about 17% total of the armed forces, but more importantly, the 6888 is a story of resilience, courage, patriotism. And they, it's like an underdog story. No one thought they will succeed because they solved a problem that no one else could. So there's just so many lessons and stories that the Six Triple Eight have taught us and stories that they have shared. And it just such an uplifting story about what can be accomplished for number one, people work together just with the right mindset and the right attitude.
Jeff
Well, thank you very much Colonel Cummings for joining us today. This is such a fascinating story and you bringing it to today's audience and not letting it be forgotten to history is, is really something that you should be proud of. And we're very proud to have you on this podcast. Thank you.
Karla
Yes, thank you for joining us and sharing this history and just bringing the relevance of what they did then to, you know, to the workforce today. Yeah.
Col. Cummings
Thank you for having me. If you get a chance, visit the Army Women's Museum. There's a great exhibit there about the Sixth Triple Eight, “The Courage to Deliver.” So just the Army Women's Museum, AWM dot Army dot Mil.
Jeff
Thank you very much.
Karla
Thank you.
Well, Jeff, it's time for another edition of Did You Know?, and the topic of this one practically chose itself. Did you know the Women's Army Corp actually had its own official anthem?
Jeff
I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that's what we're actually listening to right now.
Karla
It is. It was originally written during World War II by Ruby Jane Douglass, a special service officer of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. Douglass was a former vocal supervisor of Bristow Oklahoma Public Schools and said she came up with the idea for the song shortly after she was inducted into the Corps. The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, by the way, was what they called the Women's Army Corps before it transitioned to full military status in 1943.
Jeff
Okay, so what's the song called?
Karla
When it was written in 1942, Its title was “The WAC Is In Back of You.” In 1951, Douglass and fellow soldier, Camilla Mays Frank reworked the lyrics. The song was retitled “Song of the Women's Army Corps” and became their official anthem. Although this is the best known Women's Army Corps song, it's not the only one. During the war, the Army even published official songbooks for the WACs, filled with everything from patriotic anthems to humorous parodies of popular tunes.
Jeff
Well, that's a great segue to wrap up this episode. Thanks for sharing Karla.
Karla
Well, Jeff, so what do you think, historic group, 3,600 tons of mail, what does that even look like?
Jeff
I can't imagine. But I was imagining this group of women on a ship crossing the Atlantic, getting
chased by U boats, not knowing what they're going to be doing when they get there. Oh, and they volunteered for this. That's just stunning. This, I mean, this story just keeps getting better the more you learn.
Karla
I'm wondering if, if this was the best and the brightest, how did they recruit them? What, what was the end game? Come on, we're going to Europe?
Jeff
I think it's just the, the, the patriotism of these women who wanna support their country and want to defend our allies and, you know, not knowing what they were gonna be doing is just part of, part of their, their patriotism. They wanted to support the effort. An inspiring group of women.
Karla
Absolutely.
Jeff
And that's all for this episode of Mailin’ It! Don't forget to subscribe to Mailin’ It! wherever you get your podcast to make sure you don't miss the next episode and follow along on Instagram@USPostalService, X@USPS, Facebook and YouTube.com/@usps.