On leaving school she worked as a social worker Here Marshall initially served as a driver, ferrying senior officers around secret sites close to
Southwold in
Suffolk. This was followed by a period as an ambulance driver based at Colchester Military Hospital in
Colchester Garrison. Following training at an
Officers' Training Corps (OTC) unit in
Edinburgh Marshall received a commission and was posted to
Anti-Aircraft Command, initially at 584 Battery RA near
Sheffield and after, as a Junior Commander (Captain) to 606 Battery RA on the
Sussex coast, where she saw much action. For a short period she commanded the battery while her senior officer was on leave. At Courseulles-sur-Mer Marshall and her group set up camp among the ruins of
Bayeux, near to the front line. The remaining 482 women of 1st Continental Group, made up of three companies including cooks, drivers and Marshall's E Company of clerks, joined the advance party about a month later. September 1944 saw the entire camp move from
Normandy to
Brussels where they received a heroes' welcome. In Brussels Marshall was billeted in a building which only a few days before had been the headquarters of the local
Gestapo. In Spring 1945 senior Allied and
Wehrmacht officers met to discuss the worsening
food shortages in the northern Netherlands. A temporary truce having been agreed, Marshall, appointed Junior Commander, was posted to 3rd Continental Group ATS, Netherlands District. Here she formed K Company to obtain and distribute supplies of food to the starving Dutch population. Being driven around the Netherlands in her staff car could be perilous, and once Marshall found herself dangling in it over a river, her male driver not having seen that the retreating Germans had detonated a bridge. On being told of her close shave, General
Alexander Galloway offered to allow her to travel in his private aeroplane. Marshall went to the concentration camp at
Bergen-Belsen shortly after it had been liberated. This experience left a lasting impression on her. In the camp hospital she found a boy whose family believed him to be dead. She was able to find his family in
Rotterdam and deliver a letter to them from him.
Potsdam Conference During the preparations for the
Potsdam Conference Marshall received a telegram asking her to report to
Bad Oeynhausen. Here she was ordered to put together a temporary company to take care of the British delegation at the conference. Having personally chosen about 140 volunteers from the
Auxiliary Territorial Service, Marshall flew by
Dakota to
Berlin where she joined the Cabinet Office team, and for five weeks supervised her team at
Potsdam. Among her duties was finding suitable accommodation for the British personnel. She was in a box during the
Berlin Victory Parade in September 1945. Marshall was demobilised from the Army in April 1946. ==Later life==