Millie Dunn Veasey

Millie Dunn Veasey during World War Two

Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Libraries

Quick Facts

Significance:

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

Place of Birth:

Raleigh, North Carolina

Date of Birth:

January 31, 1918

Place of Death:

Raleigh, North Carolina

Date of Death:

March 9, 2018

Place of Burial:

Raleigh, North Carolina

Cemetery Name:

Raleigh National Cemetery

Millie Dunn was born on January 31, 1918, in Raleigh, North Carolina, one of six children. She was named after her grandmother Millie Gunter Henry. Henry inspired Dunn to serve others in the community. Dunn said that while growing up she was frail and often sickly. “My mother said as a youngster they thought they were going to lose me because of maybe some medical kinds of thing,” Dunn said, citing pneumonia, diphtheria, and throat infections as some of the illnesses she had.

Dunn graduated from Washington High School in Raleigh. After graduating, Dunn got a job doing clerical work with the Wake County Extension Office.

After entering World War II, the United States moved to expand its military capacity. In the spring of 1942, it formed the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), later known as the Women’s Army Corps (WAC). Dunn saw posters advertising the WAAC all over Raleigh. Although the posters depicted only white women, Dunn recalled, she was determined to enlist. 

She enlisted in December 1942 at the age of 24. Her mother was worried about her because of her poor health and small size. Nevertheless, Dunn persevered through her initial physical training and examinations at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She later said she was one of three women out of 21 who were selected. 

In April 1943, Dunn attended basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. She was then stationed at Fort Clark, Texas, and Camp Maxey, Texas, before completing pre-mobilization training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. The Army assigned her to the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion as a typist. The 6888th, 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, Dunn was in the first group of women from the 6888th to sail 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.

A month after Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day), Dunn and the others 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. During this time Dunn was selected for Officer Candidate School. She declined admission; with the war over, she  wanted to return to Raleigh, North Carolina.

In December 1945, Dunn and many in the 6888th sailed back to the United States and began to be discharged at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Once she returned to Raleigh, she enrolled in St. Augustine’s College with the assistance of the G.I. Bill. She graduated from St. Augustine’s with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. In 1949, she married Warren L. Veasey. They were married until his death in 1961.

After college, Dunn taught for a few years in Virginia before returning to school to earn her master’s degree in business administration at North Carolina Central University. She worked in various administrative jobs at St. Augustine’s College for 30 years until she retired in 1988.

Millie Dunn Veasey was also active in the civil rights movement. She participated in sit-ins throughout Raleigh to integrate lunch counters. In 1963, she helped organize a bus trip to Washington, D.C., where she participated in the August 28th March on Washington. As an organizer, she had a front-row seat near the Lincoln Memorial where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. From 1965 to 1968, Veasey served as the Raleigh Chapter president of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was the first woman in the chapter to hold that office. In 1966, in that capacity, she arranged for Dr. King to speak in the Raleigh area.

Millie Dunn Veasey died on March 9, 2018, at age 100. She was buried in Raleigh National Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.