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Cpl. Alyce Dixon
United States Army 6888th Central Postal Directory Womens Army Corps.
from:Washington, DC
Alyce Dixon was working for the War Department's secretarial pool at the newly constructed Pentagon when in 1943 she enlisted in the Womens Auxiliary Army Corps. She was initially limited to administrative assignments in Iowa and Texas before joining the newly established 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion in early 1945. The battalion was the only unit of black women in the WACs to serve overseas in World War II and was led by Charity Adams, one of the first black female commissioned officers in the war. The Army was segregated at the time, and Mrs. Dixon�s battalion � comprised of more than 800 African American woman and based at posts in England and France � dined and was housed separately from other WACs.
The 6888th was tasked with sorting and distributing what she estimated were billions of backlogged letters and packages to soldiers � a pileup attributed to the disruption in delivery caused by the Battle of the Bulge.
Their mission was deemed vital to sustaining GI morale on the front lines, but a significant hurdle was identifying their ultimate destination based on incomplete information supplied by families.
�A lot of mothers wrote to �Buster, U.S. Army,� or �Junior, U.S. Army,� � Mrs. Dixon told an Army publication. "We knew every service member had a number and we had difficulty finding them, however, we found every person. Also a lot of wives and sweethearts wrote to soldiers every day. There were stacks and stacks of mail we had to send back indicating deceased. That was sad. We had to fight mice and rats while sorting the mail. People down south from Alabama were sending fried chicken and bread to soldiers in France."
Working three shifts a day, seven days a week, the battalion accomplished in three months what was projected by the brass to take half a year.
