The Association of the U.S. Army is releasing two new podcasts in June as part of its relaunched “Army Matters” series.

First up is a podcast featuring retired Col. Edna Cummings, an Army Reserve ambassador for Maryland and documentary producer who has championed the story of the women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Known as the “Six Triple Eight,” the battalion was the first and only all-female, all-Black American battalion to deploy overseas during World War II.

During the war, as millions of undelivered mail and packages began to pile up in aircraft hangars in Birmingham, England, more than 850 women were recruited from the Women’s Army Corps, the Army Service Forces and the Army Air Forces to form the Six Triple Eight, according to the Army.

Led by Maj. Charity Adams Earley, the battalion was given six months to clear the floor to ceiling mail backlog. They finished in three months, sorting 65,000 pieces of mail a day, according to the Army.

The soldiers were then sent to Rouen, France, to clear two to three years of backlogged mail. They again completed their mission in three months, according to the Army.

In recent years, efforts have been made to properly recognize the women of the Six Triple Eight. The unit received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2022; AUSA supported and helped secure that legislation.

During the podcast, Cummings will talk about her efforts to bring attention to the 6888th, the glass ceilings she broke in her own 25-year Army career, and what it meant to witness Adams honored in the renaming of Fort Lee, Virginia, to Fort Gregg-Adams.

The podcast is available June 7.

Up next is a podcast featuring John McManus, author of To the End of the Earth: The U.S. Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945.

To the End of the Earth is the final volume of McManus’ trilogy on the U.S. Army in the Pacific War. Readers will walk in the boots of American soldiers and officers, braving intense heat, rampant disease, and a by-now suicidal enemy, determined to kill as many opponents as possible before defeat, and they will encounter Japanese soldiers faced with the terrible choice between capitulation or doom, according to a description of the book.

The book also lays bare the titanic ego and ambition of the Pacific War’s most prominent general, Douglas MacArthur, and the complex challenges he faced in Japan’s unconditional surrender and America’s lengthy occupation, according to the description.

McManus is an award-winning professor, author and military historian. He is the Curators’ Distinguished Professor of U.S. Military History at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. His critically acclaimed books on World War II include Deadly Sky, September Hope and The Dead and Those About to Die.

The podcast is available June 21.

Full details on the podcasts are available at https://www.ausa.org/podcast. Listeners also can subscribe to “Army Matters” for updates.