Eileen Maud Kimbell of Auckland was in London when the war broke out in 1939. She joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), and worked for the next six months at Redhill Hospital Edgeware. She then joined the a Corps of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry which was in the process of being being amalgamated with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (This may have been the Women's Transport Service) For six months she was the official FANY telephone operator at Camberley, Surrey. She was then posted to Nottingham and for the next two years was in charge of the FANY sick bay unit. She was invalided out for a period, and returned to London. Following her recuperation she returned to carry out administrative work for a FANY hostel at St John's Wood, London.

Towards the end of 1944 Eileen Kimbell resigned from the service for health reasons and to return to New Zealand. A new Zealand Herald reporter described her uniform at the time of her return to New Zealand: "Holding the rank of corporal, Miss Kimbell wears the smart greenish khaki uniform which is peculiar to this special service and which with its peaked leather-strapped cap, big tunic pockets, leather belt and bronze buttons bearing the design of the F.A.N.Y. badge, marks it as a little different from the usual Auxiliary Territorial Service uniform."

New Zealand Herald, 16 January 1945, page 2