 Even before the war started, he foresaw the likely pressures on personnel and investigated whether women would be capable to taking a part in anti-aircraft batteries.He invited Caroline Haslett of the Women's Engineering Society to spend several weekends observing the work of a battery in Surrey and she advised him that women would certainly be able to do the work, as proved to be the case during the war.In 1939, at the start of the Second World War, he was made General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Anti-Aircraft Command, a position he held throughout the war.