I 

117TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 1012 

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 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FEBRUARY 11, 2021 

Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin (for herself, Mr. LATURNER, Mr. RUPPERSBERGER, 

Mr. GRIJALVA, Ms. LEE of California, Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD, Ms. 

BARRAGA ́N, Mr. BISHOP of Georgia, Mr. VEASEY, Mrs. AXNE, Ms. 

JAYAPAL, Mr. FITZPATRICK, Mrs. BEATTY, Mr. TRONE, Mr. LIEU, Mr. 

POCAN, Mr. COHEN, Mr. SABLAN, Mr. NEGUSE, Mr. COLE, Mr. EVANS, 

Mr. RASKIN, Mr. HIGGINS of New York, Ms. KELLY of Illinois, Mr. 

LAWSON of Florida, Mrs. BUSTOS, Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Mr. 

KHANNA, Mr. CARSON, Ms. CLARKE of New York, Ms. NORTON, Mr. 

SMITH of Washington, Mr. COOPER, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. 

BEYER, Mr. LANGEVIN, Mr. COSTA, Mr. PASCRELL, Ms. WILD, Mr. NORCROSS, Mr. PANETTA, Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania, Ms. 

BASS, Mr. KIND, Mr. VICENTE GONZALEZ of Texas, Mrs. KIRKPATRICK, 

Ms. KAPTUR, Mr. TONKO, Mrs. DEMINGS, Ms. BROWNLEY, Mr. WELCH, 

Mr. STANTON, and Mr. JONES) introduced the following bill; which was 

referred to the Committee on Financial Services, and in addition to the 

Committee on House Administration, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions 

as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 

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’’. 


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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 2021’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 Congress finds the following: 

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

9 Roosevelt signed into law legislation that established 

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

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

12 WAC was converted from the Women’s Army Auxil13 iary Corps (referred to in this section as the 

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

15 official military status. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt 

16 and Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of the Na17 tional Council of Negro Women, advocated for the 

18 admittance of African-American women into the 

19 newly formed WAC to serve as officers and enlisted 

20 personnel. 

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

22 African-American women to the WAAC was limited 

23 to 10 percent of the population of the WAAC to 

24 match the proportion of African Americans in the 

25 national population. Despite an Executive order 


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1 issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 

2 banning racial discrimination in civilian defense in3 dustries, the Armed Forces remained segregated. 

4 Enlisted women served in segregated units, partici5 pated in segregated training, lived in separate quar6 ters, ate at separate tables in mess halls, and used 

7 segregated recreational facilities. Officers received 

8 their officer candidate training in integrated units 

9 but lived under segregated conditions. Specialist and 

10 technical training schools were integrated in 1943. 

11 During World War II, a total of 6,520 African12 American women served in the WAAC and the 

13 WAC. 

14 (3) After several units of White women were 

15 sent to serve in the European Theater of Operations 

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

17 World War II, African-American organizations advo18 cated for the War Department to extend the oppor19 tunity to serve overseas to African-American WAC 

20 units. 

21 (4) In November 1944, the War Department 

22 approved sending African-American women to serve 

23 in Europe. A battalion of all African-American 

24 women drawn from the WAC, the Army Service 

25 Forces, and the Army Air Forces was created and 


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1 designated as the 6888th Central Postal Directory 

2 Battalion (referred to in this section as the 

3 ‘‘6888th’’), which was nicknamed the ‘‘Six Triple 

4 Eight’’. 

5 (5) Army officials reported a shortage of quali6 fied postal officers within the ETO, which resulted 

7 in a backlog of undelivered mail. As Allied forces 

8 drove across Europe, the ever-changing locations of 

9 servicemembers hampered the delivery of mail to 

10 those servicemembers. Because 7,000,000 civilians 

11 and military personnel from the United States 

12 served in the ETO, many of those individuals had 

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

14 were named Robert Smith. One general predicted 

15 that the backlog in Birmingham, England, would 

16 take 6 months to process and the lack of reliable 

17 mail service was hurting morale. 

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

19 Birmingham. Upon their arrival, the 6888th found 

20 warehouses filled with millions of pieces of mail in21 tended for members of the Armed Forces, United 

22 States Government personnel, and Red Cross work23 ers serving in the ETO. 

24 (7) The 6888th created effective processes and 

25 filing systems to track individual servicemembers, 


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1 organize ‘‘undeliverable’’ mail, determine the in2 tended recipient for insufficiently addressed mail, 

3 and handle mail addressed to servicemembers who 

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

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

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

7 backlog of mail within 3 months. 

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

9 May 1945 and worked through a separate backlog of 

10 undelivered mail dating back as far as 3 years. 

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

12 returned to the United States. The 6888th was dis13 continued on March 9, 1946, at Camp Kilmer, New 

14 Jersey. 

15 (10) The accomplishments of the 6888th in Eu16 rope encouraged the General Board, United States 

17 Forces, European Theater of Operations to adopt 

18 the following premise in their study of the WAC 

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

20 program is the joint responsibility of all Americans 

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

22 of colored, along with white, female military per23 sonnel is required in such strength as is proportion24 ately appropriate to the relative population distribu25 tion between colored and white races’’. 


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1 (11) With the exception of smaller units of Af2 rican-American nurses who served in Africa, Aus3 tralia, and England, the 6888th was the only Afri4 can-American Women’s Army Corps unit to serve 

5 overseas during World War II. 

6 (12) The members of the ‘‘Six Triple Eight’’ re7 ceived the European African Middle Eastern Cam8 paign Medal, the Women’s Army Corps Service 

9 Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal for 

10 their service. 

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

12 the Meritorious Unit Commendation. 

13 SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 

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

15 House of Representatives and the President pro tempore 

16 of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the 

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

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

19 Central Postal Directory Battalion (commonly known as 

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

21 (1) the pioneering military service of those 

22 women; 

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

24 (3) the contributions made by those women to 

25 increase the morale of all United States personnel 


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1 stationed in the European Theater of Operations 

2 during World War II. 

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

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

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

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

7 inscriptions, to be determined by the Secretary. 

8 (c) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.— 

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

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

11 to the Smithsonian Institution, where the medal 

12 shall be available for display, as appropriate, and 

13 made available for research. 

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

15 Congress that the Smithsonian Institution should 

16 make the gold medal received under paragraph (1) 

17 available elsewhere, particularly at— 

18 (A) appropriate locations associated with 

19 the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion; 

20 (B) the Women in Military Service for 

21 America Memorial; 

22 (C) the United States Army Women’s Mu23 seum; 

24 (D) the National World War II Museum 

25 and Memorial; 


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1 (E) the National Museum of the United 

2 States Army; and 

3 (F) any other location determined appro4 priate by the Smithsonian Institution. 

5 SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 

6 Under such regulations as the Secretary may pre7 scribe, the Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 

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

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

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

11 SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDALS. 

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

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

14 31, United States Code. 

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

16 5134 of title 31, United States Code, all medals struck 

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

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

19 SALE. 

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

21 authorized to be charged against the United States Mint 

22 Public Enterprise Fund such amounts as may be nec23 essary to pay for the costs of the medals struck under 

24 this Act. 


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

2 sale of duplicate bronze medals authorized under section 

3 4 shall be deposited into the United States Mint Public 

4 Enterprise Fund. 

Æ 


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