Joan Kennedy (born Joan Barbara Fensham; 1908–1956) was a Canadian soldier. Born in

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

, Kennedy moved to

Victoria, British Columbia Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. Th ...

as a teenager and later worked as an accountant. When the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

began she founded the British Columbia Women's Service Corp to train women in noncombatant roles. She was "the founding and driving force behind the creation" of the

Canadian Women's Army Corps The Canadian Women's Army Corps was a non-combatant branch of the Canadian Army for women, established during the Second World War, with the purpose of releasing men from those non-combatant roles in the Canadian armed forces as part of expanding ...

in 1941. Kennedy was appointed commander-in-chief of the corps at the rank of lieutenant colonel – the first woman to receive a commission in the Canadian Army. Kennedy left the army in 1946 and died in 1956.

References

1908 births 1956 deaths Canadian military personnel of World War II British emigrants to Canada {{Canada-mil-bio-stub