Woman of the Week – Alene Durek

Alene Durek was the first female admiral in the U.S. Navy after rising her way through the ranks of the Navy Nurse Corps.

She was born in Defiance, Ohio in 1920. She developed a passion for nursing at a young age. She observed the nurses who came to her family home to take care of her ailing father, who grew sick after his service in World War I.

She went on to graduate high school in 1938, and then enrolled in the Toledo Hospital School of Nursing. Her first job was as a registered nurse in the hospital. She then went on to be a staff nurse at a Toledo department store.

When the U.S. entered World War II, there was a major shortage of nurses. After seeing several recruiting messages from the Red Cross, she decided to enlist in the Navy Nurse Corps in 1943. Her first tours were at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia and the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. She also did a tour at sea on the USS Benevolence, where she provided care to wounded troops turning from Japan. The ship originally was supposed to support an allied invasion of Japan, but while it was en route, the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The ship instead cared for newly freed prisoners of war.

“The time I was aboard the hospital ship and we took the prisoners of war, that was something I will never forget," Durek said years later in a Navy Times interview. "That was the most exciting experience of my whole career.”

She was released from active service in 1946 but came back in 1951. She served as a nursing instructor Naval Hospital Corps School in Portsmouth and later took various educational posts in Philadelphia, San Diego and Washington. By 1970, she was placed in charge of the Navy Nurse Corps.

During this time, the Navy was working to make itself more appealing for women to join. With an open admiral spot and this concept in mind, she was chosen for the admiral spot from about two dozen candidates.

President Richard Nixon approved Durek’s appointment in 1972. She retired in 1975 but remained involved with Navy medicine for the rest of her life. She took on a role as somewhat of a spokesperson for all women in the Navy. She served on the Visiting Nurse Association board in the early 1990s, where she served for nearly 25 years. She passed away in July 2018.