An excerpt from Time -
This Pioneering Officer Led an All-Black Women’s Army Corps Battalion in a Daunting World War II Mission: Saving Soldiers' Mail
BY MARI K. EDER
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Maj. Charity Adams, commanding officer of the
WAC Postal Battalion serving in England Bettmann Archive/Getty Images |
Charity Adams was already on her way to the European theater in January 1945, and there was a sealed envelope on her lap. It was time to find out where she was going. She tore open the sealed orders and gasped. It was the job every officer coveted: command, troop time, and being in charge. Adams, who had been the highest-ranking Black officer at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, had commanded a training company, which was a good experience, but to be selected to command a battalion—a brand-new unit—overseas during wartime was a tremendous vote of confidence in her abilities. It was every opportunity she could have hoped for.
Adams had been born in 1919, at a time when the U.S. was celebrating victory in World War I. The next year, the 19th Amendment was passed, and women were given the right to vote. It was a time of change in the country. A feeling of optimism was in the air, and it felt like new possibilities were open for women—unless you were Black. Then it was still a fight, all the way. Growing up in Columbia, S.C., the oldest of four children of a minister and a teacher, she’d been first in many things in her life, including being first in her high school class, valedictorian, and she continued that streak in 1942, becoming part of the first officer class of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later simply WAC).
By the time she reached Fort Des Moines for basic officer training, she’d already gotten her first taste of racism in the Army. A white lieutenant had insisted and made certain that Black recruits didn’t sit with the white women on the bus headed for the camp. In that first officer class, there were 400 white women. There were also 40 Black women—the “ten percenters.” While their training was integrated, their living conditions were not.
The Army had scrambled to assemble Adams’ new unit, the 6888th Central Postal Battalion. By 1944, there was a two-year backlog of mail for troops, members of the Red Cross and civilians serving in Europe. There simply weren’t enough postal units. The all-Black WAC unit, known as the “Six Triple Eight,” was the only Black WAC unit to be deployed—another first, with an impossible mission.
The Six Triple Eight’s 855 women were sent to Birmingham, England. When the first contingent arrived, Adams was there to meet their ship. Many had been seasick on the trip over. After being chased by submarines, others were glad to be on land. Their arrival came with a message about the danger of their work—a German V1 rocket, the “Buzz Bomb,” came screaming in just as the women were heading down the ramp. They ran for cover as it hit the dock close to where they were disembarking. No one was injured, but it was a definite reminder that they had arrived in a war zone.
https://time.com/6085055/charity-adams-world-war-ii/
