102-Year-Old WWII Veteran from Black Women’s Unit, Romay Davis, to Receive Medal

When mail sent to U.S. troops began piling up in warehouses across Europe toward the end of World War II, the task of getting things back in order was given to a special unit.

It was the largest all-black, all-women’s group to serve during the war: the 6888th Central Post Directory Battalion, the Associated Press (AP) reported Tuesday.

The oldest living member of the group, 102-year-old Romay Davis, was honored at Montgomery City Hall in Alabama on Tuesday, following a presidential decision earlier this year to authorize the Congressional Gold Medal for the unit.

According to the Army Historical Foundation’s website, the battalion kept mail going out to millions of soldiers serving in the European Theater of Operations:

The women of the 6888th were discouraged when they discovered warehouses crammed from floor to ceiling with mail and packages that had not been delivered for at least two years.  Rats the size of cats had broken into some of the Christmas care packages for front line soldiers and eaten their contents.  The women went to work, organizing a system that would break the bottleneck of undelivered mail.

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Work conditions were less than ideal.  The women pitched mail in damp, poorly-lit warehouses without heat. The windows were all painted over for blackout conditions.  To battle the cold, some women resorted to wearing ski pants, field jackets, fatigues or anything else to keep warm. They worked eight-hour rotating shifts, seven days a week. The job, which was supposed to take them six months, was completed in only three.

Meanwhile, Davis said she was pleased to receive the honor by standing in the place of the others who were gone.

“I think it’s an exciting event, and it’s something for families to remember,” Davis commented, adding, “It isn’t mine, just mine. No. It’s everybody’s.”

Images showed the battalion’s members standing shoulder to shoulder in their uniforms:

Davis enlisted in the Army in 1943, and later married. She worked in the fashion industry in New York until her retirement in Alabama. In addition, she earned a martial arts black belt, then worked at a grocery store until she turned 101.

Davis, whose primary job was a motor pool driver, noted, “The mail situation was in such horrid shape they didn’t think the girls could do it. But they proved a point.”