Josephine (Barham) Dresser remembers the day she was rejected for military service although it was 68 years ago.

Josephine was 17. She had just finished business school and looked forward to her trip from rural Chesire, England to Manchester to enlist. She stood in line, took tests and filled out her paperwork, but when the final test came, she failed. Josephine was rejected for being too small. She stood just shy of five-foot.

The rejection did not deter her, however. After eating lunch, she returned to the back of the line, went through the process again and when it came time to measure her height, she stood on her tiptoes, hit the five-foot mark and was accepted into the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s non-combat branch of the British Army.

Josephine Dresser was 17 when she en- listed. (Press photo by Ken Grosjean)

Naturally, Josephine’s parents were “furious.” But, Josephine wanted to do her part for the war effort, just like her friends and two other famous members of the Auxiliary Territorial Service--Mary Churchill, youngest daughter of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Princess Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth.

ATS members did a wide variety of jobs to support the war effort. Some served as clerks, orderlies, drivers, ammunition inspectors and searchlight operators. By the end of World War II, 90 percent of all single women and 80 percent of married women directly supported the troops or worked on the farms or in the factories, according to the BBC.

Josephine enlisted in 1943, three years after the Battle of Britain. She had lived with the fear of an enemy invasion for those three years. “It was a very realistic threat that we would be invaded and taken over by Nazi Germany. The fear was there all the time. I was always aware of it.”

While she didn’t live in London or one of the industrial cities that were the frequent targets of Nazi bombing raids, one incident hit close to home. She was living on a farm in Northwest England when she heard the bombers passing over head. “I guess they were still loaded up with some of their bombs. To make their passage swifter to Germany, they unloaded them as they went at random. One dropped at a nearby farm. Dad and mother and myself were under the stairs that night. The only shelter we had. We didn’t have a bomb shelter.”

The next morning, the family went to see if they could help their neighbors, but the farmhouse was totally destroyed and shreds of clothing hung to the branches of bare trees.

This was the closest call for Josephine’s family. The rural areas of England were relatively safe and families such as hers were expected to take in children evacuated from industrial cities, which were the frequent targets of bombing raids. The Barham family took in a mother and her two children.

Josephine spent six weeks at boot camp and was posted to a base in Carlisle, 12 miles south of the Scottish border. She provided clerical support for a mechanics unit servicing convoys going from the north to the south.

Josephine was discharged in November of 1947 and stayed in England until 1953. The war had exacted a toll on both her and the country. At age 27, Josephine sought a brighter future in America. She came to Toledo, sponsored by her cousin, Emma Sawyer, a teacher at Coy Elementary School.

She immediately landed a job as a live-in nanny for two doctors and settled in Toledo. She married Norman Dresser, an editor and movie critic at The Blade, raised two sons and  later went on to work 10 years as a legal secretary for Advocates for Basic Legal Equality. Today, she is retired, lives in Oregon and volunteers at Little Sisters of the Poor.

Each August 21, Josephine celebrates a personal milestone.  She became a United States citizen on that date in 1958.

Josephine has lived in her adopted country now for 58 years. She has worked, paid taxes and raised her family here. She calls the United States “a great country.”

When asked what the greatest advantage of citizenship is, she replied, “The right to vote. That’s very important. I’ve never missed a year. I have very strong opinions. I can’t imagine not wanting to become a citizen. Unthinkable.”

This Wednesday, Josephine will be honored by her adopted country when she travels to Washington D.C. with Honor Flight of Northwest Ohio to visit the World War II Memorial. She will be accompanied by her son, David.

While Honor Flight has sent more than 700 local veterans to Washington, Josephine is the only service personnel from an allied country to go in recent years, according to Lee Armstrong, Honor Flight president.

She is looking forward to the trip and can take comfort in the fact that there are no height requirements to deter her from remembering her service to The Allied war effort.

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