117TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 321 

AN ACT 

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, 
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1 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

2 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘ ‘Six Triple Eight’ Con3 gressional Gold Medal Act of 2021’’. 

4 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

5 Congress finds the following: 

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

7 Roosevelt signed into law legislation that established 

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

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

10 WAC was converted from the Women’s Army Auxil11 iary Corps (referred to in this section as the 

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

13 official military status. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt 

14 and Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of the Na15 tional Council of Negro Women, advocated for the 

16 admittance of African-American women into the 

17 newly formed WAC to serve as officers and enlisted 

18 personnel. 

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

20 African-American women to the WAAC was limited 

21 to 10 percent of the population of the WAAC to 

22 match the proportion of African-Americans in the 

23 national population. Despite an Executive order 

24 issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 

25 banning racial discrimination in civilian defense in26 dustries, the Armed Forces remained segregated. 
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1 Enlisted women served in segregated units, partici2 pated in segregated training, lived in separate quar3 ters, ate at separate tables in mess halls, and used 

4 segregated recreational facilities. Officers received 

5 their officer candidate training in integrated units 

6 but lived under segregated conditions. Specialist and 

7 technical training schools were integrated in 1943. 

8 During World War II, a total of 6,520 African9 American women served in the WAAC and the 

10 WAC. 

11 (3) After several units of White women were 

12 sent to serve in the European Theater of Operations 

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

14 World War II, African-American organizations advo15 cated for the War Department to extend the oppor16 tunity to serve overseas to African-American WAC 

17 units. 

18 (4) In November 1944, the War Department 

19 approved sending African-American women to serve 

20 in Europe. A battalion of all African-American 

21 women drawn from the WAC, the Army Service 

22 Forces, and the Army Air Forces was created and 

23 designated as the 6888th Central Postal Directory 

24 Battalion (referred to in this section as the 
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1 ‘‘6888th’’), which was nicknamed the ‘‘Six Triple 

2 Eight’’. 

3 (5) Army officials reported a shortage of quali4 fied postal officers within the ETO, which resulted 

5 in a backlog of undelivered mail. As Allied forces 

6 drove across Europe, the ever-changing locations of 

7 servicemembers hampered the delivery of mail to 

8 those servicemembers. Because 7,000,000 civilians 

9 and military personnel from the United States 

10 served in the ETO, many of those individuals had 

11 identical names. For example, 7,500 such individuals 

12 were named Robert Smith. One general predicted 

13 that the backlog in Birmingham, England, would 

14 take 6 months to process and the lack of reliable 

15 mail service was hurting morale. 

16 (6) In February 1945, the 6888th arrived in 

17 Birmingham. Upon their arrival, the 6888th found 

18 warehouses filled with millions of pieces of mail in19 tended for members of the Armed Forces, United 

20 States Government personnel, and Red Cross work21 ers serving in the ETO. 

22 (7) The 6888th created effective processes and 

23 filing systems to track individual servicemembers, 

24 organize ‘‘undeliverable’’ mail, determine the in25 tended recipient for insufficiently addressed mail, 
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1 and handle mail addressed to servicemembers who 

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

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

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

5 backlog of mail within 3 months. 

6 (8) The 6888th traveled to Rouen, France, in 

7 May 1945 and worked through a separate backlog of 

8 undelivered mail dating back as far as 3 years. 

9 (9) At the completion of their mission, the unit 

10 returned to the United States. The 6888th was dis11 continued on March 9, 1946, at Camp Kilmer, New 

12 Jersey. 

13 (10) The accomplishments of the 6888th in Eu14 rope encouraged the General Board, United States 

15 Forces, European Theater of Operations to adopt 

16 the following premise in their study of the WAC 

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

18 program is the joint responsibility of all Americans 

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

20 of colored, along with white, female military per21 sonnel is required in such strength as is proportion22 ately appropriate to the relative population distribu23 tion between colored and white races’’. 

24 (11) With the exception of smaller units of Af25 rican-American nurses who served in Africa, Aus-
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1 tralia, and England, the 6888th was the only Afri2 can-American Women’s Army Corps unit to serve 

3 overseas during World War II. 

4 (12) The members of the ‘‘Six Triple Eight’’ re5 ceived the European African Middle Eastern Cam6 paign Medal, the Women’s Army Corps Service 

7 Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal for 

8 their service. 

9 (13) In 2019, the Army awarded the 6888th 

10 the Meritorious Unit Commendation. 

11 SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 

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

13 House of Representatives and the President pro tempore 

14 of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the 

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

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

17 Central Postal Directory Battalion (commonly known as 

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

19 (1) the pioneering military service of those 

20 women; 

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

22 (3) the contributions made by those women to 

23 increase the morale of all United States personnel 

24 stationed in the European Theater of Operations 

25 during World War II. 
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1 (b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purposes of the 

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

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

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

5 inscriptions, to be determined by the Secretary. 

6 (c) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.— 

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

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

9 to the Smithsonian Institution, where the medal 

10 shall be available for display, as appropriate, and 

11 made available for research. 

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

13 Congress that the Smithsonian Institution should 

14 make the gold medal received under paragraph (1) 

15 available elsewhere, particularly at— 

16 (A) appropriate locations associated with 

17 the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion; 

18 (B) the Women in Military Service for 

19 America Memorial; 

20 (C) the United States Army Women’s Mu21 seum; 

22 (D) the National World War II Museum 

23 and Memorial; 

24 (E) the National Museum of the United 

25 States Army; and 
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1 (F) any other location determined appro2 priate by the Smithsonian Institution. 

3 SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 

4 Under such regulations as the Secretary may pre5 scribe, the Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 

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

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

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

9 SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDALS. 

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

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

12 31, United States Code. 

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

14 5134 of title 31, United States Code, all medals struck 

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

16 SEC. 6. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF 

17 SALE. 

18 (a) AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS.—There is 

19 authorized to be charged against the United States Mint 

20 Public Enterprise Fund such amounts as may be nec21 essary to pay for the costs of the medals struck under 

22 this Act. 

23 (b) PROCEEDS OF SALE.—Amounts received from the 

24 sale of duplicate bronze medals authorized under section 
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1 4 shall be deposited into the United States Mint Public 

2 Enterprise Fund. 

Passed the Senate April 29, 2021. 

Attest: 

Secretary. 
117TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 321 

AN ACT 

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the memBattalion, known as the ‘‘Six Triple Eight’’. signed to the 6888th Central Postal Directory bers of the Women’s Army Corps who were as-