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The Veterans History Project (VHP) of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American military veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of military service.
Home State: New York
Dates of Service: 1942-1945, 1950-1971
Highest Rank: Major
“The girls were so happy to be able to find these gentlemen and get the mail to them.” (Video interview with Representative Greg Stanton, 37:46)
Fannie Griffin McClendon spent more than two decades in the military and can cite multiple impressive accomplishments, including serving as a squadron commander in the Air Force. Her proudest memory, however, is of her time with the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. In her oral history interview she provides fascinating details concerning how the 6888th operated. She also provides the invaluable perspective on the contours of life as a career military officer in an era when African American women faced down bigotry and barriers.
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Fannie Griffin McClendon was born in Louisiana, where both of her parents hailed from. Her father was a World War I veteran who was tragically killed in a workplace accident when McClendon was just five years old.
“So my mom—it was tough—she was single, with two kids to raise, and she took every job she could get.” (Video interview with Representative Greg Stanton, 3:44)
McClendon’s mother moved the family to New Jersey and then New York to find higher-paying work, and Fannie would graduate from high school in New York City.
When World War II started, McClendon was eager to do her part:
“When the war came along—actually, I was listening to a football game, and I thought it was just a game. And then I found out that it was really—a war had broken out. And some of the girls wanted to go, but some didn’t. I was ready to leave home, I had just graduated from high school.”“And I went down, and there were five women of color who took the exam at 5th Avenue in New York. And when the exam was over they told us to wait to get the results. And then they told all five us we failed. And one was a doctor, two were schoolteachers. So there was one woman who was a very good friend of someone who worked for Mrs. Roosevelt. She said, “Go home, I’ll call you and let you know what’s happening.” She called, and a Mr. Gray—I remember his name—he called back and said, “Tell them to go down to 39 Whitehall Street, they’ll get sworn in.” I don’t know what she did, but we all got in, and then we went on to basic training.” (Video interview with Representative Greg Stanton, 4:25)
The officials proctoring the entrance exam for WAAC candidates had falsely told McClendon and the four other African American women that they had failed, and they were only admitted into the WAAC after political leaders got involved.
When asked why she had wanted to join the fledgling WAAC, McClendon responded:
“It was something that was different. My mother had worked hard, and for the time that we were growing up, we had wonderful ideas of what we wanted to be, but I thought this was a chance.” (Video interview with Representative Greg Stanton, 8:45)
McClendon’s encounters with discrimination in the military unfortunately did not stop with the entrance exam. She went through WAAC basic training in Fort Des Moines, Iowa.
McClendon: “In Des Moines, as I remember, our unit—we were not allowed to go to the BX [base exchange]…you’d write down what you wanted, and two girls would go over and pick out everything you wanted and brought it back—we were not allowed to go to the store. And later on, that did stop. And we were—when I was in Officer Candidates School you were separated, there were four [African Americans] in my class. And there were I think 49 of the white girls…. We were in a room about the size of this room, and we had a commander who was from the state of Washington—and this is one of the funny things that happened—and she didn’t know what to do insofar as where we were supposed to be. So she put us all in by alphabetical order, and from [that point] on we went in in alphabetical order! [laughs] So I mean there are funny things that did happen.”Representative Stanton: “She didn’t get the memo!”
McClendon: “Right, she didn’t get the memo on how she’s supposed—and I don’t think anybody wanted to tell her that she had done it wrong.” (Video interview with Representative Greg Stanton, 19:00)
McClendon initially entered the WAAC as an enlisted soldier, but passed a selection test for officer training while at Fort Huachuca, her first duty station. She went back to Fort Des Moines for Officer Candidates School, before being sent to Camp Lee, Virginia for training as a supply officer. McClendon remembers that the train ride from Fort Des Moines to Camp Lee was initially integrated, but they were not allowed to remain that way:
“Well, the funny thing about this is the fact that we all got on the train, and we got to some little place called Bluefield, West Virginia. And the train man comes through and he says, “All the white folks, follow me.” The [other] Black girl was from Alabama, she looks at me and she says, “Griffin, don’t you say anything. You’re from New York, don’t you say anything!” One [white] girl was from Virginia - she knew what to do, but the Massachusetts girl didn’t know what to do, she was— [shrugs shoulders, laughs]. So, she grabs her, and they took their things and they took off.” (Video interview with Representative Greg Stanton, 20:33)
At Camp Lee, the African American personnel were not allowed to use the Officers Club or eat at the main mess hall.
“Someone asked me, “How did you put up with it?” I said, “The way we put up with everything else!”” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 1:30:55)
McClendon remembers her time with the 6888th with a profound sense of pride in their accomplishments and in the way they conducted themselves in Europe. The battalion used what were known as locator cards to maintain addresses for all the U.S. servicemembers in Europe, and McClendon recalled the women of the 6888th’s determination to track down those servicemembers whose locator cards were not up to date:
“The girls got a kick out of working the mail – we had over 600 cards and we had to determine whether they maybe were killed in action, whether they had gone home, or they moved on to another unit or another area. And they were very happy, they found all but about a hundred—and out of 600 that was pretty good.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 10:21)
A persistent issue that the 6888th faced in their work was the daily arrival of packages that were damaged or filled with rotting food. McClendon recounts that the soldiers in her company came up with an innovative method of getting replacement packages to those who were sent damaged packages:
“I think one of the nicest things—the girls decided, on the packages that were broken where we couldn’t find names or anything like that… they would save the names if they could find a set of names. And they had a list, I remember, in one of the rooms where they did the mail, and if something came in with no names they’d take somebody’s name off the list and send it on. It may not be what Grandma sent, or whatever [laughs] but I thought that was—they got a big kick out of that, they enjoyed that.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 8:35)
“But one of the neatest things is one girl comes in with this box and she says, “What do I do with this?” Somebody had sent—from the state of Washington—eight of the most beautiful apples. They were not—there wasn’t even a speck on them. And so they went to the top of the list and they sent it to somebody. Major Adams said at the time that we could keep the apples, but we didn’t.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 11:02)
Like other 6888th members, McClendon savored the opportunity to travel around Europe after hostilities had ended. She went on a group trip to the French Riviera in July 1945 that ended in tragedy, however. Three members of her group—Pfc. Mary Bankston, Pfc. Mary Barlow, and Sgt Dolores Brown—were killed in an auto accident. As the ranking officer of the group, it fell to McClendon to identify the body of one of the women. In her oral history interview with Barbara Hatch, McClendon remembers being traumatized by the event, but was also proud of the way the battalion came together to honor their comrades:
“There was one girl that they couldn’t identify—she did not have her dog tags on. And so I had to go and identify her…. I didn’t know—you learn a lot—I didn’t know that when they bury the soldiers they roll them up in a shelter half and just put them in the ground. And that was something new to me, but Major Adams decided that that was something she didn’t want to happen with the girls. So they went into Rouen with the ladies behind there, and they found a place there where they found lumber and everything, and the German prisoners made caskets. And so the girls were buried in caskets. I was kind of—I guess I wasn’t talking—the whole thing had upset me so. And so she told me I didn’t have to go to the funeral services, and I said, “Yes, I want to go.” She said, “I don’t want you to go, you go to the barracks and you rest yourself.” And it took me a while to get over, because we didn’t expect anything like that to happen.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 33:20)
McClendon had high praise for the battalion’s commander, Major Charity Adams, for her leadership in this difficult period and throughout the battalion’s time in existence:
“This lady was a tough lady, I'll tell you. But she kept us together.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 36:02)
And though McClendon went on to have a distinguished career in the Air Force, it is a testament to the importance of what the 6888th accomplished that when asked what her proudest moment was from her time in the military, she responded:
“In England, where the girls were so happy to be able to find these gentlemen and get the mail to them.” (Video interview with Representative Greg Stanton, 37:46)
After being discharged from the WAC after the war, McClendon returned home to New York and continued her college studies while also working full-time. After a few years, she received a recruiting letter and in 1950 she returned to the military as a first lieutenant in the Air Force.
McClendon served as a supply officer within Strategic Air Command in the Air Force, a role that gave her a wide variety of responsibilities, including managing living quarters, ordering airplane repair parts, and managing commissary and exchange supplies. She also recalls stronger bonds of camaraderie in her Air Force days than she often experienced in her early days in the WAC. Her first duty station was Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska:
“Omaha was nice, the civilians were very nice. But other than one pilot, I was the only African American that had been pulled back there. I used to go to the club, and everybody would buy me a drink to hear my story. [laughs] Sometimes I wouldn’t go to the officers’ club, I would go downtown, I had met some people. And Offutt is where I had learned to drive.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 1:15:07)
Learning to drive in her early 30s from a fellow officer at Offutt resulted in McClendon having some humorous interactions with General Curtis LeMay, a legendary figure in Air Force history who was commanding Strategic Air Command at the time. When he came across her learning to change tires he remarked tongue-in-cheek, “I’ve got a motor pool – we can send you out there and you can change as many tires as you want.” McClendon also remembered:
“Whenever he saw me at the club he wanted to know, "Well, did you learn how to drive?" "Yes sir! I learned." So that’s how I got to know General LeMay. I had also been following my boss with briefing him on these parts that they needed for the B-52.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 1:23:45)
Beyond her humorous anecdotes, McClendon’s Air Force career—in addition to her time with the 6888th—mark her as a true pioneer for women in the military. After once being rejected for a squadron commander assignment because she was a woman, she was finally selected to serve as a squadron commander of an all-male squadron later in her career.
Fannie McClendon—who was known by her fellow officers as "Griff" from her maiden name Griffin—chose to speak often in both her interviews about meeting her husband in the Air Force. She met her future husband—known as "Mack" by his friends—while they were both at a training course at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, and Mack’s initial attempts at courtship did not go smoothly. After socializing a few times at the base’s country club, Mack left without saying goodbye:
“So I wrote my mother and I said, “I met a seemingly nice fellow, but he’s just like all the rest.” [laughs] And I said, “He graduated, and he didn’t even say goodbye when he left!”” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 1:45:25)
But when Fannie got back to her base in Kansas, she started receiving letters from Mack:
“The first letter was more like a business letter. And then his letters got longer, and he was telling me about the things that he did on the base, and what they did at the club, and all that sort of thing, which I was not the least bit interested in.”“But the third letter was the interesting one, and again about three pages long, and he told me about what had happened to his car, and [while talking on the phone he asked] “Did you get my letter?” “Yes, I did”—I had to go to the basement because I had it in a box. And so he went on talking about something else, and he said, “Well, did you read the letter?” And I said, “Yes, I read the letter.””
“Well, what had happened was I picked up the letter with my friend, and when I opened it and read it I said, “Let’s get a bottle of champagne.” And we went over and sat on the floor and drank the champagne, and I let her read it and she laughed and she thought it was pretty funny. What he had done in that third letter was to ask me to get married. Now I don’t even know this guy! I don’t see him again after I leave Cheyenne or anything, so I didn’t know—she said, “What are you going to do?” I said, “I’m not going to do anything.” So he called up, and that’s when he gave me the formal “Will you marry me?”” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 1:45:25)
They did of course get married, and in an era before the military prioritized keeping married couples stationed together, they often had to fight hard for assignments to the same base. She remembers a close and loving marriage, where they helped each other with work tasks and with graduate school assignments:
“When he got his Masters degree from the University of New Hampshire, the family was there, and he went up on stage, and when he came down he kept walking, and he kept walking. And he got back to where we were sitting, and he handed me [the diploma] and he said, “You earned it.”” [laughs] (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 2:17:22)
“When he was here, we kept ourselves busy. They were talking about it, saying, “At your age, what do you do with yourself?” Well, I love antiques, and I had my own antique shop, and he started teaching - we kept busy.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 2:23:24)
After also retiring from the Air Force, her husband was determined to work as a high school teacher. He faced a great deal of discrimination in finding a job, but persevered and worked as an educator in Arizona for many years. The pain of his recent passing was still evident in McClendon’s interview with Barbara Hatch:
“He was gone. And it was hard to even believe. My sister—I’m glad she was here at the time, because I just about lost it.” (Video interview with Barbara Hatch, 2:21:23)
The Veterans History Project has two different collections for Fannie Griffin McClendon: