Captain Alice Zwicker McAlevey
Photo: Facebook Stories From Maine
During World War II, Alice May Zwicker McAlevey served as a Second Lieutenant in the US Army Nurse Corps and is remembered as one of the "Angels of Bataan and Corregidor." McAlevey was one of 78 nurses who were captured and imprisoned in and around Manila. Despite horrific conditions and mistreatment, McAlevey and her fellow nurses continued serving Allied troops incarcerated alongside her them in the POW camps after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in 1942. They were not liberated until February, 1945 and or some time, her family was unaware of her survival after the Japanese invasion.
After the war, McAlevey was twice diagnosed with tuberculosis, likely an aftereffect of working night shifts on the contagion ward at Santo Tomas. This ultimately led to the removal of one of her lungs. After her initial diagnosis her first husband left her, and she struggled with suicidal ideations from what we now know was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. McAlevey passed away at the age of 58 due to ovarian cancer, but she is remembered for her extraordinary heroism.
