Within the military, the control of information and communication is of paramount importance, and that’s even more true during a time of war. Governments routinely surveil and censor letters coming from and going to the front, to make sure no sensitive information is released or disseminated. Because of this, in one of the least talked about aspects of the 6888’s work, they were forced to censor some of the letters they processed.
Lt. Col. Charity Adams described the experience in her book “One Woman’s Army.” She said the task was “boring, boring, boring,” and was only made more tedious by the massive volume of mail they had to deal with. Adams wrote that she initially felt a little uncomfortable reading the personal letters of strangers. Yet, she noted that the censors themselves became desensitized to the personal aspect relatively quickly, and she even felt that some of the more difficult letters may have been planted by higher-ups just to keep them busy.
Adams also was given the difficult task of censoring the mail of her own battalion. Some of the 6888 had apparently been consorting with known communist civilians in France, and army intelligence ordered their mail be looked at. One officer was to have all of her mail censored because she also had relatives back home who were allegedly communists, too.
