Career
Jane Trefusis Forbes had been Chief Instructor, ATS School of Instruction in 1938. In 1936, Forbes, Helen Gwynne-Vaughan and Kitty Trenchard launched the Emergency Service, to train women and organize them to be prepared in case of war. There were probably fewer than 100 women in the organization which was not officially recognized.
On 1 July 1939, three months before the beginning of World World War II, she was appointed as Director of the WAAF in order "to advise the Air Member for Personnel on questions concerning the WAAF".
Early in the war she is said to have allowed the house to be used as a place for senior militarily personnel to have a few days respite – Field Marshal Montgomery is thought to have been among the guests. By 1943 there were 175,000 women in the ranks of the WAAF. In October 1943, she toured Canada to assess the Women"s Division of the Royal Canadian Air Force (Royal Canadian Air Force).
She also toured India to investigate the possibility of employing women in the South East Asia Command. She retired in August 1944.
Lady Watson-Watt died in 1971 in London, aged 72, after suffering a second heart attack.
Her husband died two years later. Both are interred in the churchyard at Pitlochry.