II 

116TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 633 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the members of the Women’s 

Army Corps who were assigned to the 6888th Central Postal Directory 

Battalion, known as the ‘‘Six Triple Eight’’. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

FEBRUARY 28, 2019 

Mr. MORAN (for himself, Mr. ROBERTS, Mr. ROUNDS, Ms. ROSEN, Mr. 

WICKER, Mrs. HYDE-SMITH, and Mr. TILLIS) introduced the following 

bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, 

Housing, and Urban Affairs 

A BILL 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the members of 

the Women’s Army Corps who were assigned to the 

6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, known as 

the ‘‘Six Triple Eight’’. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘ ‘Six Triple Eight’ Con5 gressional Gold Medal Act of 2019’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 Congress finds the following: 


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1 (1) On July 1, 1943, President Franklin D. 

2 Roosevelt signed into law legislation that established 

3 the Women’s Army Corps (referred to in this section 

4 as the ‘‘WAC’’) as a component in the Army. The 

5 WAC was converted from the Women’s Army Auxil6 iary Corps (referred to in this section as the 

7 ‘‘WAAC’’), which had been created in 1942 without 

8 official military status. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt 

9 and Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of the Na10 tional Council of Negro Women, advocated for the 

11 admittance of African-American women into the 

12 newly formed WAC to serve as officers and enlisted 

13 personnel. 

14 (2) Dubbed ‘‘10 percenters’’, the recruitment of 

15 African-American women to the WAAC was limited 

16 to 10 percent of the population of the WAAC to 

17 match the proportion of African-Americans in the 

18 national population. Despite an executive order 

19 issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 

20 banning racial discrimination in civilian defense in21 dustries, the Armed Forces remained segregated. 

22 Enlisted women served in segregated units, partici23 pated in segregated training, lived in separate quar24 ters, ate at separate tables in mess halls, and used 

25 segregated recreational facilities. Officers received 


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1 their officer candidate training in integrated units 

2 but lived under segregated conditions. Specialist and 

3 technical training schools were integrated in 1943. 

4 During World War II, a total of 6,520 African5 American women served in the WAAC and the 

6 WAC. 

7 (3) After several units of White women were 

8 sent to serve in the European theater of operations 

9 (referred to in this section as the ‘‘ETO’’) during 

10 World War II, African-American organizations advo11 cated for the War Department to extend the oppor12 tunity to serve overseas to African-American WAC 

13 units. 

14 (4) In November 1944, the War Department 

15 approved sending African-American women to serve 

16 in Europe. A battalion of all African-American 

17 women drawn from the WAC, the Army Service 

18 Forces, and the Army Air Forces was created and 

19 designated as the 6888th Central Postal Directory 

20 Battalion (referred to in this section as the 

21 ‘‘6888th’’), which was nicknamed the ‘‘Six Triple 

22 Eight’’. 

23 (5) Army officials reported a shortage of quali24 fied postal officers within the ETO, which resulted 

25 in a backlog of undelivered mail. As Allied forces 


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1 drove across Europe, the ever-changing locations of 

2 servicemembers hampered the delivery of mail to 

3 those servicemembers. Because 7,000,000 individ4 uals from the United States were serving in the 

5 ETO, many of those individuals had identical names. 

6 As an example, 7,500 such individuals were named 

7 Robert Smith. One general predicted that the back8 log in Birmingham, England would take 6 months to 

9 process and the lack of reliable mail service was 

10 hurting morale. 

11 (6) In May 1945, the 6888th arrived in Bir12 mingham. Upon their arrival, the 6888th found 

13 warehouses filled with millions of pieces of mail in14 tended for members of the Armed Forces, United 

15 States Government personnel, and Red Cross work16 ers serving in the ETO. 

17 (7) The 6888th created effective processes and 

18 filing systems to track individual servicemembers, 

19 organize ‘‘undeliverable’’ mail, determine the in20 tended recipient for insufficiently addressed mail, 

21 and handle mail addressed to servicemembers who 

22 had died. Adhering to their motto of ‘‘No mail, low 

23 morale’’, the women processed an average of 65,000 

24 pieces of mail per shift and cleared the 6-month 

25 backlog of mail within 3 months. 


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1 (8) The 6888th traveled to Rouen, France later 

2 in May 1945 and worked through a separate backlog 

3 of undelivered mail dating back as far as 3 years. 

4 (9) At the completion of their mission, the en5 tire unit returned to the United States. The 6888th 

6 was discontinued on March 9, 1946, at Fort Dix, 

7 New Jersey. 

8 (10) The accomplishments of the 6888th in Eu9 rope encouraged the General Board, United States 

10 Forces, European Theater of Operations to adopt 

11 the following premise in their study of the WAC 

12 issued in December 1945: ‘‘[T]he national security 

13 program is the joint responsibility of all Americans 

14 irrespective of color or sex’’ and ‘‘the continued use 

15 of colored, along with white, female military per16 sonnel is required in such strength as is proportion17 ately appropriate to the relative population distribu18 tion between colored and white races’’. 

19 (11) With the exception of smaller units of Af20 rican-American nurses who served in Africa, Aus21 tralia, and England, the 6888th was the only Afri22 can-American women’s unit to serve overseas during 

23 World War II. 

24 (12) The members of the ‘‘Six Triple Eight’’ re25 ceived the European African Middle Eastern CamVerDate Sep 11 2014 22:56 Mar 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S633.IS S633

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1 paign Medal, the Women’s Army Corps Service 

2 Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal for 

3 their service. 

4 SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 

5 (a) AWARD AUTHORIZED.—The Speaker of the 

6 House of Representatives and the President pro tempore 

7 of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the 

8 award, on behalf of Congress, of a single gold medal of 

9 appropriate design in honor of the women of the 6888th 

10 Central Postal Directory Battalion (commonly known as 

11 the ‘‘Six Triple Eight’’) in recognition of— 

12 (1) the pioneering military service of those 

13 women; 

14 (2) the devotion to duty of those women; and 

15 (3) the contributions made by those women to 

16 increase the morale of all United States personnel 

17 stationed in the European theater of operations dur18 ing World War II. 

19 (b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purposes of the 

20 award described in subsection (a), the Secretary of the 

21 Treasury (referred to in this Act as the ‘‘Secretary’’) shall 

22 strike the gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and 

23 inscriptions, to be determined by the Secretary. 

24 (c) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.— 


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1 (1) IN GENERAL.—After the award of the gold 

2 medal under subsection (a), the medal shall be given 

3 to the Smithsonian Institution, where the medal 

4 shall be available for display, as appropriate, and 

5 made available for research. 

6 (2) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of 

7 Congress that the Smithsonian Institution should 

8 make the gold medal received under paragraph (1) 

9 available elsewhere, particularly at— 

10 (A) appropriate locations associated with 

11 the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion; 

12 (B) the Women in Military Service for 

13 America Memorial; 

14 (C) the United States Army Women’s Mu15 seum; 

16 (D) the National World War II Museum 

17 and Memorial; and 

18 (E) any other location determined appro19 priate by the Smithsonian Institution. 

20 SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 

21 Under such regulations as the Secretary may pre22 scribe, the Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 

23 bronze of the gold medal struck under section 3 at a price 

24 sufficient to cover the costs of the medals, including labor, 

25 materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses. 


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1 SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDALS. 

2 (a) NATIONAL MEDALS.—Medals struck under this 

3 Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 

4 31, United States Code. 

5 (b) NUMISMATIC ITEMS.—For purposes of section 

6 5134 of title 31, United States Code, all medals struck 

7 under this Act shall be considered to be numismatic items. 

Æ 


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