First female Navy captain oversaw greatest growth of Nurse Corps

This Day in History, Dec. 22, 1942: The First Female Captain in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps Superintendent Sue Dauser (1888-1972) was promoted to the "relative rank" of captain, becoming the first woman in United States Navy history to achieve this status, Dec. 22, 1942.[1] Just two years later, when Public Law No. 238 granted full military "wartime" rank to Navy nurses, Dauser became the first woman commissioned as a captain in the U.S. Navy. 

Throughout her long and accomplished career (1917-1946), Dauser served across the globe, both aboard ship and ashore. In World War I, she acted as chief nurse at the Naval Base Hospital 3, Leith, Scotland, where she oversaw care of both British and American service personnel evacuated from the trenches of the Western Front. Following the war, Dauser earned distinction as one of the first women to serve at sea, serving aboard USS Argonne (1922) as well as the hospital ship USS Relief (1924-1926). In 1923, Dauser was one of two nurses assigned to duty aboard the transport USS Henderson to care for President Warren G. Harding on his goodwill tour to Alaska. Dauser would later be one of Harding's attending nurses during his final illness and ultimate death, Aug. 2, 1923, in San Francisco, Calif. Dauser was appointed superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps, Jan. 30, 1939, following tours of duty at Naval Hospitals Canacao, Philippines; Puget Sound, Wash.; Mare Island, San Diego; and at the Naval Dispensary Long Beach, Calif. During her tenure as the Navy's chief nurse, Dauser lead the Nurse Corps through its largest growth - from 439 nurses in 1939 to 10,968 nurses at the close of World War II. By the end of the war, Navy Nurses were serving at 364 stations at home and overseas[2] including fleet hospitals in the Pacific, medical units in North Africa and aboard 12 hospital ships. For her administrative achievements and steadfast leadership, Dauser was awarded, the Distinguished Service Medal by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal in December 1945. Her citation read in part: "Captain Dauser maintained a high morale and splendid efficiency in the Navy Nurse Corps, and her constant devotion to duty throughout reflects the highest credit upon herself, her command and the United States Naval Service." Dauser retired from service on April 1, 1946. Just a year after her retirement, the Army-Navy Nurses Act (Public Law 36) of April 16, 1947 made the Navy Nurse Corps an official staff corps of the U.S. Navy and gave its members permanent officer status with commensurate pay and allowances.

Under this law, Dauser's former position of "Superintendent" was changed to "Director of the Nurse Corps."