 In 1937, she joined the Emergency Service, and in 1938 the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women's branch of the British Army.In 1939 she was promoted to senior commandant, based in London; she was transferred later that year to the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).She served as inspector-general from 1942, and succeeded Katherine Jane Trefusis-Forbes to become second Director of the WAAF, from October 1943 to November 1946.