From wartime volunteer to brigadier
DAME Joanna Kelleher was the most senior figure in the Women's Royal Army Corps until 1968 and presided over it during a time of real social change for women.
Born in London, Joan Henderson, named after Joan of Arc, was the daughter of Kenneth, a barrister, and his wife Evelyn. She studied in Surrey and Switzerland, where she became fluent in French.
Kelleher began volunteering at a hospital at the start of the Second World War and it was while she was there that she heard on the radio that the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women's branch of the Army, needed Kine Theodolite Operators to use systems that improved the accuracy of weapons, such as anti-aircraft guns.
She went on to train at the Cameron Barracks in Inverness and was commissioned into the ATS. After four months training in the collection of data for missile and aircraft testing, Kelleher was posted to liaise with Free French staff officers because of her fluency in the language. She was soon promoted to lance corporal.
When the war ended, Kelleher knew she could not go back to her pre-war existence of arranging flowers and walking the dog, so she decided to stay in the Army.
In 1949, after two years in the War Office, she enrolled at the Staff College in Frimley, Surrey, and was then posted to Bad Oeynhausen, Germany. She soon began travelling around the world, including postings to Cyprus and Singapore and in 1964 she was appointed Director of the Women's Royal Army Corps, rising to become a brigadier.
For four years, until 1958, she was the most senior officer in the women's branch and cut a distinctive figure as she was always accompanied by her cocker spaniel Misty. During her time, she oversaw the expansion of roles for women which grew to include staff officers, dog handlers, communications operators and intelligence analysts.
From 1966 Kelleher served as an honorary personal assistant to the Queen for two years.
She married a fellow brigadier, Mortimer Kelleher, in 1970, who predeceased her in 2006. She is survived by her niece and nephew.