Five times, Karen Taylor has watched the film, “The Six Triple Eight,” since its release in December. And she’ll see it again and again, with good reason. The Netflix movie, directed by Tyler Perry, chronicles the formidable task during World War II faced by Taylor’s mother and others in a segregated Women’s Army Corps unit to help America’s cause.
What those 855 women did was sort the mail, mountains of it, addressed to GIs desperate for word from home, letters and packages that were gridlocked in transit in England and France. As members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, Vivian Elzie (Taylor’s mother) and her sistren were challenged to clear out a three-year backlog of more than 17 million pieces of mail.
They did it in just three months, working round-the-clock shifts in unheated, rat-infested, hangar-sized warehouses so near the fighting that the ground shook during bombing raids. Their efforts raised the spirits of soldiers corresponding with loved ones back home.
“Their motto was, ‘No mail, no morale,’ ” said Taylor, 78, of Catonsville.
A retired dental hygienist, Taylor has been lobbying for years to tell her mom’s story. And while the movie doesn’t mention Elzie by name, her daughter said it’s a step forward.
“I’m tired of this being hidden,” Taylor said. “Black women do things, and Black people need to know that we’ve been fighting for the world.”
Elzie, who died in 1979, was among 19 Marylanders assigned to the 6888th (her sister, Marian Elzie, was also in the unit). Born and raised in Crisfield, on the Eastern Shore, they’d been urged by their father, a waterman, to leave home to find work.
” ‘Stay here,’ he said, “and you’ll end up cleaning houses or picking crabs,’ ” Taylor said.
Vivian Elzie “wanted to see the world and help her country,” her daughter said. In 1942, at age 28, Elzie joined the Army and rose to the rank of first lieutenant. Three years later, her unit went overseas — the only predominately Black WAC battalion deployed to Europe during the war.
Taylor remembers her mother describing the voyage:
“The rough waters made her seasick the whole time, and the ship’s captain had to [zig-zag] to avoid the [German] U-boats that were chasing them.”
Once there, Taylor said, the women processed “humongous” stacks of mail, first in Birmingham, England, and then in Rouen, France. Many of the missives were barely legible, or addressed vaguely, like “To Junior, U.S. Army” or using a soldier’s nickname. Painstakingly, and under dreadful conditions, the 6888th delivered.
“They were true detectives,” Taylor said.
The battalion returned home in 1946, Elzie with her husband, Capt. Elyseo Taylor, a soldier she’d met in France. They were married in Paris — the bride in a wedding dress supplied by the American Red Cross.
In civilian life, Elzie attended art school, then sought work as a commercial artist, only to find no jobs open for women of color. She returned to the Eastern Shore, raised a family and taught art at the then-segregated Salisbury Junior-Senior High.
“Knowing my mother, she’d have done [the Army thing] again,” Taylor said. “She hoped her efforts would make a difference for [Black] people coming after her.”
In 2022, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. And in Perry’s film, the names of each member of the unit are in the credits. Taylor has a still photo of her mother’s name on the screen.
Wearing her military uniform did help to level the playing field for Elzie during her five years in the service, her daughter said:
“Once, before shipping out, she boarded a train in the South to go from one Army post to another. All seats were taken, so my mother approached two white GIs.
” ‘Excuse me, but there’s something wrong here,’ she said. ‘I’m standing and you’re sitting.’ When the men looked up, my mother pointed to her [lieutenant’s] bars and said, ‘Do you know what this means?’ ”
The men stood up. The officer sat down.
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