Portsmouth's Doris Moore and women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion
After Portsmouth native Doris Moore returned home in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree in hand, she wanted to do something to help her country. America was embroiled in the Second World War at the time, a literal battle between good and evil.
Moore was a woman, and she was Black. Her opportunity to make a significant contribution to the war effort was limited not only by her gender but by her race. This opportunity ultimately arrived with the formation of the 6888th Central Postal Delivery Battalion, an all-Black detachment of the Women’s Army Corps.
In order to achieve success on the battlefield, America’s fighting men needed more than proper training and equipment; more than an effective military strategy to guide them. They had to be reminded at times just why they were fighting so far from home.
A key ingredient – perhaps the most important – in maintaining high morale among the troops was communication from their loved ones. Which is how the unit known as the Six Triple Eight came into being,
Moore and her sister soldiers of the 6888th became the first battalion of Black women to serve overseas. These members of the Women’s Army Corps, more popularly known as WACs, were stationed in England and then transferred to France in 1945, the pivotal final year of the war. Their mission was to attack mountains of undelivered mail intended for the troops, some already delayed by as much as two years.
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Until recently, the service rendered by these remarkable women has never been officially recognized. Now a group of federal lawmakers - including both of New Hampshire’s U.S. senators - are seeking to pay tribute to these women. The effort especially hits home with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, both groundbreaking women in their own right, because at least one of the soldiers they intend to honor was a fellow Granite Stater.
Doris Moore died in 1993 at 77 years of age. She was born and raised in Portsmouth, graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1937, and left to pursue her education and to serve in the war. Then she came back home and, like so many others who returned from the war, continued to serve her community.
Moore never married, never had children, and she left a legacy which will hopefully find a wider audience now. Her story is representative of the women of the Six Triple Eight, and what better time to share their story than the middle of Black History Month?
Moore was born in Portsmouth in 1916 and grew up in the Puddle Dock area of what is now called Strawbery Banke. Although she is no longer with us, she recalled her childhood in an interview conducted by local historian Valerie Cunningham three decades ago as part of a Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail project.
Moore sang in the Glee Club and went to the prom with her brother – who also taught her to dance – because there wasn’t much interracial dating at the time, she said.
Her nieces Elizabeth Pettiford of Dover and Sarah Bodge of Salisbury, Massachusetts, say their grandfather James operated his own janitorial service and was able to put both Moore and her brother – also named James – through college. The siblings graduated from Morris Brown College in Atlanta, and young James went on to become a high school principal in Georgia.
A mission to deliver mail
Meanwhile, the world was at war and the Allies needed everyone to pitch in. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and other civil rights leaders pushed for African-Americans to be included in military units like the WACs, and then to be given the opportunity to serve overseas.
Right around this time, stacks of undelivered mail and Christmas packages continued to pile up in Birmingham, England, warehouses and airplane hangars, and there was neither sufficient personnel nor process to get them to millions of Americans fighting far from home. Eventually, the solution became clear.
More than 800 black enlisted women and officers were assigned to what would become the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Her nieces say Moore enlisted after graduating from college, and eventually wound up in the Six Triple Eight as well.
The female soldiers were sent to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, for training, including rope climbs and “long marches with rucksacks,” according to the US Army Center of Military History. A February 2009 Washington Post article reported “they crawled under logs wearing gas masks and jumped over trenches” during this training.
In January 1945, the unit was sent to Camp Shanks, New York, to depart for England. The first wave of the 6888th encountered a bit of a rude awakening upon their arrival in the UK, when a Nazi rocket exploded near the dock.
“We went over on a French passenger ship. It was huge,” Moore said in her 1990 interview with Cunningham. “We landed in Glasgow, Scotland and came on down to Birmingham, England.”
The website of the U.S. Army Center of Military History describes the massive undertaking awaiting these women, noting how some mail was simply addressed to “Buster, US Army,” or similar nicknames and vague addresses. There were also many soldiers with similar or even identical names – for instance, some 7,500 men named Robert Smith were serving in the military at the time.
In addition, U.S. troops were constantly on the move as they chased the enemy across Europe. And sometimes the intended recipient was dead by the time his whereabouts were determined, so the belated mail had to be returned.
The warehouses were without heat and all windows were blacked out to prevent light from showing outside during nighttime raids, according to the Army site. The women had to wear long johns and extra clothing beneath their coats to keep warm during the winter cold.
They also had to deal with rats rummaging through old care packages of spoiled baked goods.
The battalion was commanded by Maj. Charity Edna Adams, and in all honesty I have no idea why this woman isn’t a household national hero by now.
Adams appears to have been a highly formidable and downright fearless individual. A preacher’s kid, she was valedictorian of Booker T. Washington High School in South Carolina, then majored in mathematics, physics and Latin at Wilberforce University in Ohio. She graduated in 1938 and became a junior high math and science teacher while pursuing graduate studies.
When the war broke out, she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps – which later became the Women’s Army Corps – and was the first Black officer commissioned in its ranks. Adams was already a major by the time the 6888th was formed, and the military brass selected her as commanding officer.
“Over my dead body, sir,” the major – a Black woman still in her 20s - famously replied. Predictably, she was almost court-martialed for her response, but prepared charges of her own to file against the general. Adams retained her command.
Officials had previously estimated it would take about six months to clear up the postal apocalypse encountered by the 6888th. Instead, the women completed their task in three.
The unit was divided into three eight-hour shifts so mail could be processed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, according to the Army website. (Which is why the women were not all turned out for inspection by the outraged general.) They went through roughly 65,000 pieces of mail each shift, and created a system of about 7 million cards listing the serial numbers of U.S. troops, to help determine the correct recipient for those with similar names.
The unit’s motto was “No mail, low morale.”
Sometimes local Brits turned out to watch them work, as many had never seen African-American women before. The WACs found the British to be quite welcoming, and some of the women were invited into private homes for tea.
''These WACs are very different from the colored women portrayed on the films, where they are usually either domestics or the outspoken old-retainer type or sloe-eyed sirens given to gaudiness of costume and eccentricity in dress,'' a local British newspaper reported at the time. ''The WACs have dignity and proper reserve.''
Moore had fond memories of her time in Birmingham.
“When we got there, all the English chicks had the Black men,” she told Cunningham decades later in the Black Heritage Trail interview. “Later, I had a boyfriend. I guess it was who comes first.”
However, segregation was still the rule of the day, along with the added bonus of misogyny. Even though Black male soldiers were allowed into enlisted personnel clubs run by the American Red Cross, the black WACs were not. Maj. Adams – who was later promoted to lieutenant colonel – led a boycott among her troops of the alternative segregated clubs run by the Red Cross.
Resentment toward women in uniform sometimes led to slanderous comments about the WACs from both white and black male soldiers, according to the Army site.
Once they wrapped up their work in England, the 6888th was transferred to Rouen, France, in June 1945, shortly after Germany’s surrender, to attack new mountains of undelivered mail. They also marched in a victory parade, cheered on by the liberated French, near the execution site of Joan of Arc.
Again, the women went through the backlog well ahead of expectation. When the job there was completed, they were sent on to Paris. Moore said in her 1990 interview she visited the Left Bank and Switzerland during this time.
“We had a ball,” she remembered.
After the war
The ranks of the 6888th began to dwindle after the conclusion of the war as members were discharged. The rest of the unit returned to the States in February 1946 and the Six Triple Eight officially came to an end at Fort Dix in New Jersey.
“There were no parades, no public appreciation, and no official recognition of their accomplishments,” the Army site states.
Moore resumed her education, utilizing the GI Bill to earn a master’s degree from the Atlanta University School of Social Work. After working for Family Services in Louisville, Kentucky – where she was the agency’s only black employee – she returned to Portsmouth to look after her sick mother.
She became New Hampshire’s first female African-American social worker, employed with the Children’s Aid and Protective Society in Manchester (later known as Child and Family Services). The former Army private kept an apartment in downtown Manchester where she stayed during the week, then drove to her home on Pickering Street on the weekends.
“She loved her work and she was dedicated to it,” her niece Elizabeth Pettiford recalled recently. “And she was excellent.”
Her nieces say Doris Moore and their mother, Sarah, were very close, and lived right next door to each other on the same street in Puddle Dock where they grew up.
“She and my mother did everything together,” Pettiford said. “She loved being the life of the party. She was the center of attention.”
Moore retired in 1981 after 22 years with the agency. She later had a stroke and lived with Pettiford in Dover for about a year when she was in failing health. She died at the Edgewood Centre in Portsmouth in 1993.
As for the inspiring Charity Adams, she later took on the last name Earley when she married a physician, and became a college dean in Tennessee and Georgia. She published a book in 1995 about her wartime experiences, entitled “One Woman’s Army,” and died in 2002 at the age of 83. Her New York Times obituary called her a “black pioneer.”
In 2019, Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas introduced a bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to the battalion. Both Hassan and Shaheen co-sponsored the legislation, along with Maine Sen. Susan Collins. But while the bill passed in the Senate, it was not approved by the House of Representatives to become law.
Now, because Congress has started a new session, the bill must pass in the Senate again, as well as the House. Hassan says she wants to “get this across the finish line” during the new session.
“The women of the Six Triple Eight are American heroes who served our country with honor and persevered through incredible challenges, including sexism and racism, in order to help get millions of letters and packages to our troops during World War II,” said Hassan. “This Congressional Gold Medal recognizing Doris and the other trailblazing women of the Six Triple Eight is long overdue.”
The story of such “trailblazing women” resonates with Hassan and Shaheen, the first two women in American history to serve their home state as both governor and senator. Shaheen, who was also the state’s first female governor, recently called Moore “a hero and a patriot, who New Hampshire is so proud to call one of our own.”
This patriot’s nieces, who also include Gail Pettiford and Doris Terry, put together a statement in support of this proposed legislation.
Doris Moore “took pride in wearing her uniform along with her fellow sisters of color who served with her in the United States Army,” her nieces said. “These brave women served with pride and fortitude as they experienced racial bias and limited notation.”
Here’s hoping the women of the Six Triple Eight finally get the recognition they deserve.
