Tyler Perry’s 2024 Netflix film,The Six Triple Eight,sheds light on a historically overlooked battalion in World War II. The titular battalion wasan all-Black and all-female WW2 battalion, and they were tasked with the nearly impossible job of sorting 17 million letters for American soldiers and their loved ones back home. As addressed inTyler Perry’s new war movie, soldier morale was at an all-time low at that time during the war. What did not help was the soldiers were not receiving any care packages or letters from home.
In addition to this, their loved ones were not receiving updates directly from them via the mail, so it left a lot of families, friends, and partners wondering if the soldiers were well. In some cases, like Lena Derriecott King’s (Ebony Obsidian), it was not until their loved one’s death that they received news of what happened.There was a desperate need to sort the mail, all 17 million letters, and that’s when the Six Triple Eight stepped in; although, this was extremely difficult.
How The Six Triple Eight Located Where The Letters Should Go
The Six Triple Eight Got Creative To Figure Out Who Sent Letters Back Home
With so many lost letters to sort through,the Six Triple Eight went to extreme lengths to sort and send said letters. To achieve this, the women needed to get creative to decipher where these letters were supposed to go. Thanks to locator cards, directories, and a soldier’s information — name, service numbers, serial numbers, etc. — the Six Triple Eight put a system in place to try and sort as much of the mail as possible. However, other tactics were needed at times.
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In these cases, the members of the Six Triple Eight would open letters and care packages to look for context clues to narrow down their search. For instance, perfumes and fabrics could be clues about where a soldier’s loved ones were. If they could nail down the type of perfume or fabric, they could hopefully find where it was sold, narrowing down the options for where a sender was from or where a letter would need to go. While the brilliant women of the Six Triple Eight figured this much out, it was still no easy task.
Why It Was So Difficult For The Six Triple Eight To Sort Out The Letters
The Six Triple Eight Faced Racism, Unsafe Work Conditions, & Damaged Letters
The women oftheSix Triple Eight, who are based on real-life people, faced many difficulties when it came to sorting the mail. Initially, they were only given six months to achieve this task, something Major Adams (Kerry Washington) thought was a manageable amount of time in the film at first. That was until she saw the amount of mail, and she realized her women were being set up to fail from the get-go.Major Adams and her women faced sexism and racism from the military, and this led to an already difficult task becoming next to impossible.
“They did not send us because they thought we could do it. We are here because they are sure we cannot.” - Major Adams (Kerry Washington),The Six Triple Eight
A lot of the letters were also damaged over time, many being eaten by rats. Some of the information was also too generic to ever determine who was the sender or receiver. Furthermore,the conditions of their work environment were not in the Six Triple Eight’s favor.For instance, many women were freezing and needed to wear gloves, slowing down the process. There was the looming threat of air raids and bombs.
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This was a task that would be impossible for many others, but not those shown inThe Six Triple Eight.They connected soldiers with their loved ones once more, successfully sorting through 17 million letters in three months — half the amount of time allotted to them originally (viaTIME). To do so, they overcame many hurdles, proving to those working against them that these women were the best of the best bythe end ofThe Six Triple Eight.
