Alene Duerk  Alene Bertha Duerk (March 29, 1920 – July 21, 2018) became the first female admiral in the U.S. Navy in 1972. She was also the director of the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps from 1970 to 1975. She is a 1974 recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award of Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. Duerk was born in Defiance, Ohio, on March 29, 1920, to Albert and Emma Duerk. She had nursing training at Toledo (Ohio) Hospital School of Nursing, from which she received her diploma in 1941. On January 23, 1943, she was appointed as an ensign in the Nurse Corps of the U.S. Naval Reserve. After receiving her commission in 1943, she was assigned in March of that year as a Ward Nurse at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Virginia. In January 1944, she transferred, in a similar capacity, to the Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Maryland and in May 1945 joined the That vessel, anchored off Eniwetok, received the sick and wounded brought back from Third Fleet operations against Japan and later joined the Third Fleet for its last strikes against the enemy. After the cessation of hostilities, that hospital ship remained in Japanese waters, off Yokosuka, to assist in the processing of liberated Allied prisoners of war. The "Benevolence" returned to the United States with wounded servicemen in late 1945. Assigned in January 1946 to the Naval Hospital, Great Lakes, Illinois, Durek continued duty there until June of that year, when she was released from active naval service. She attended the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, from which she received the degree of Bachelor of Science in Ward Management and Teaching, Medical and Surgical Nursing, in 1948. Employed as Supervisor and Instructor, Medical Nursing, at Highland Park (Michigan) General Hospital, she remained there until 1951. While there, she joined a ready naval reserve unit in Detroit, Michigan, in 1948. Ordered to return to active naval service, she reported in June 1951, as a ward nurse at the Naval Hospital, Portsmouth, Virginia. Transferred in September 1951 to the Naval Hospital Corps School, Portsmouth, she was a Nursing Instructor there until October 1956, when she became Interservice Education Coordinatorat the Naval Horpital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From June 1958 to May 1961 she served as Nurse Programs Officer at the Naval Recruiting Station, Chicago, Illinois, after which she had duty as Charge Nurse at the U. S. Naval Station Hospital, Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines.