ABSTRACT
DAUSER, SUE SOPHIA (1888-1972) The rst woman to attain the rank of captain in the U.S. Navy, Sue Dauser arguably should have been an admiral. She commanded some fourteen thousand members of the Navy Nurse Corps (NNC) who were assigned to ships and hospitals all around the world; many naval men at that rank command only a fraction of that number and usually at one place. When the Navy nally did promote a woman to its highest rank, it would be another NNC chief, Alene Duerk, who became the rst female admiral during the feminist revolution of the 1970s. Then the corps, which began in 1908, would be much smaller than it was during Captain Dauser’s World War II tenure.
