She was assigned to her first active duty on 13 June 1945,[7] and served for two years during World War II at the Boston Navy Yard.

[7][8][9] In March 1948, when Congress was deliberating on whether women should permanently become part of the military, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Harlem’s Representative to the House argued that the Nurses’ Corps should be permanent, that the military should be fully desegregated and emphasized that DeVoe was the only black nurse serving the 19,337 black servicemen in the navy.

[10] In 1949, DeVoe earned the rank of Lieutenant (JG) and was assigned to the St. Albans Naval Hospital in the Queens borough of Long Island.

[11] The following year, she became the first black nurse assigned to a duty station outside the U.S. mainland,[8] when she was sent to the Tripler Army-Navy Hospital, one of the few medical centers serving multiple service branches.

[7] She returned to duty and retired from military service in 1960 in Oakland, returning to Washington, D. C.[6] DeVoe died from lung cancer on November 17, 2000, at Cherry Lane Nursing Center in Laurel, Prince George's County, Maryland[6] and was buried at Quantico National Cemetery in Triangle, Virginia.