Phyllis Mae Dailey (March 12, 1919 – October 31, 1976) was an American nurse and officer who became the first African American woman either to serve in the United States Navy or to become a commissioned Navy officer. An alumna of the Lincoln School for Nurses and Teachers College, Columbia University, she was sworn into the Navy Nurse Corps as an ensign on March 8, 1945. She left the service on May 9, 1951, having earned the rank of lieutenant (junior grade). Early life and education Dailey was born in New York City to Septimus and Mary Herron Dailey. Her parents had immigrated to America from the British West Indies in 1915. Her father was a carpenter. She graduated from the Lincoln School for Nurses, studied public health at the Teachers College, Columbia University, and worked at a city hospital. After the United States entered World War II, she repeatedly applied to the Army Nurse Corps and Navy Nurse Corps, the latter of which desegregated on January 25, 1945. Military service Dailey was sworn into service in the Navy Nurse Corps on March 8, 1945, becoming the first African American woman to serve in the Navy, as well as the first African American woman to become a commissioned Navy officer. Three other African American women—Edith Mazie DeVoe, Helen Fredericka Turner, and Eula Lucille Stimley—also became ensigns in the Navy Nurse Corps during the war. These four were the only Black women out of six thousand nurses who served in the Navy during World War II. In contrast, at the time of Japan's surrender in early September 1945, 479 of the 50,000 Army Nurse Corps were Black, and 6,520 African American women had served in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. While Turner and Stimley left the service by mid-1946, Dailey stayed in the Navy after the war, rising to Lieutenant Junior Grade on April 11, 1948. She was discharged on May 9, 1951, and returned to civilian life. Dailey was a member of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. She attributed the Nurse Corps' desegregation to the activism of Mabel Keaton Staupers, who fought for the inclusion of Black nurses in the armed forces. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt also lobbied for integration. Dailey said she "knew the barriers were going to be broken down eventually and felt the more applicants, the better the chances would be for each person." Later