Burnardine Fraser Flanagan

Burnardine Fraser Flanagan

U.S. Army

Quick Facts

Significance:

Member of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion and World War Two Veteran

Place of Birth:

Key West, Florida

Date of Birth:

December 19, 1921

Place of Death:

Houston, Texas

Date of Death:

August 6, 2017

Place of Burial:

Houston, Texas

Cemetery Name:

Houston National Cemetery

Burnardine Fraser was born on December 19, 1921, in Key West, Florida. Her parents where Edward and Kathleen Fraser. Her family moved to New London, Connecticut, when she was four years old. On April 6, 1943, Fraser enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. (WAAC) shortly after graduating from high school. She attended basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. 

After completing basic training, Fraser was assigned to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, as an assistant librarian. Several months after arriving in Louisiana, Fraser received orders for overseas deployment with the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Although she was nervous about deploying, she said in an interview, “My commander told me that I was chosen to go overseas and ready or not I had to go overseas. When you are in the army, I learned that despite the fears, you don’t question, you just do as you are told.” In November 1944, she transferred to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and joined the 6888th. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, known as the Six Triple Eight, was the only African American WAC unit to go overseas during the war. Their mission was to sort, organize, and direct mail to U.S. servicemen.

On February 3, 1945, Fraser was one of the first women from the 6888th to board the S.S. ÎIe de France in New York for their voyage to Great Britain. The voyage took 11 days, during which they survived close encounters with Nazi U-boats. They arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, on February 14, 1945. The 6888th was then stationed in Birmingham, England, where they discovered warehouses full of undelivered mail. The unit worked in three shifts around the clock seven days a week to clear the backlog. They adopted the motto, “No Mail, Low Morale”—mail was the only connection the men fighting on the front lines had with friends and family back home. Before the 6888th, mail delivery was intermittent at best. The morale of the soldiers was waning because they had no connections outside the military.

The women developed a new system of organizing and tracking mail. The system required tracking individual servicemembers by maintaining about seven million information cards. The cards included serial numbers to distinguish different individuals with the same name. They also tried to deliver mail with insufficient information through this system. The hardest part for the unit was returning mail when it was addressed to a servicemember who died. Yet thanks to their system, they were able to process approximately 195,000 pieces of mail per day. The U.S. Army thought it would take the 6888th six months to clear the mail backlog in Birmingham. The 6888th finished the job in three months.

On June 9, 1945, Fraser and the rest of the 6888th were transferred to Rouen, France. They were there to clear another mail backlog. In France, the Six Triple Eight worked alongside French civilians and German prisoners of war. The Six Triple Eight completed the mail backlog here in October 1945. They were then transferred to Paris, France.

Returning to the United States, Fraser was honorably discharged on December 6, 1945. In February 1946, the Six Triple Eight were officially disbanded at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Fraser later described what life was like when she returned from war: “When I came back, I found doors that were closed prior to my tour in the Army were opening up when I got back. American was starting to change.”

Fraser later married Thelmer Flanagan, a Navy mess cook aboard submarines, in New London, Connecticut. The couple had four children. Burnardine Fraser Flanagan attended Baucus School of Nursing and became a Licensed Practical Nurse, LPN. She worked at the Submarine Base Hospital in New London for 15 years. 

After retirement, Flanagan moved to Houston, Texas, to live with her daughter. Burnardine Fraser Flanagan died on August 6, 2017, at the age of 95. She was buried in Houston National Cemetery in Texas.