Leslie Joy Whitehead

When Canada entered the Great War on August 4, 1914 Whitehead was only 19 years old but already resolute in her pursuit of getting to the Front, where she hoped "to get fixed as a motor transport or ambulance driver".[4] As for many women whose true desire lay in getting to the thick of the action on the frontlines, however, Whitehead initially started her war-work away from the firing lines. Travelling to London, England, Whitehead volunteered, alongside "a batch of young ladies from Canada", to work "long hours over the card index and the typewriter in order to", as the Yorkshire Evening Post reported on June 3, 1915, "keep the people of" her "own country informed of the condition of the wounded among the Canadian contingent".[5] This newspaper described "Miss Whitehead" as "a lady volunteer of a very different kind" because she could "do almost anything in the out-of-door life", and was "desirous of putting her handiness at the disposal of the military authorities".[6] During the Great War, however, the Western Front was completely forbidden to women.[7] Conflict zones were deemed far too dangerous a place for the "weaker sex" to be, with some even considering it an abomination that the female life-giver should enter the battlefield, where she stood to witness brutal and unrelenting loss of life.[8] The few females that did get to this front were, then, either branded "camp followers" (i.e. prostitutes) or, as in the case of sapper Dorothy Lawrence (the only English woman to cross-dress as a soldier and to gain access to the Western Front in this capacity), sent back to England in a state of disgrace. Whitehead was, however, determined in her goal. Like the women doctors of the Scottish Women's Hospitals, she decided to offer her services to Britain and the Commonwealth's Allies; a decision that would ultimately lead her to Serbia. It was following this Balkan country's acceptance of her help that Whitehead became a volunteer engineer with the Serbian Relief Fund in July 1915.

Whitehead enlisted as a man in the Royal Serbian Army at the age of 22.[9] Once in Serbia, Whitehead found herself able to freely live life like a man. This liberty was to be cut short, however, when on October 8, 1915, Serbia fell to Central Power forces. By November 3, 1915, Whitehead was working under occupation in the central Serbian city of Kruševac. According to Dr Catherine Corbett of the Scottish Women's Hospitals Second Serbian unit, this female engineer had been sent to Kruševac with the Serbian army within which she had "enlisted as a man".[10] According to contemporary newspaper sources, Whitehead was "acting as a lieutenant in the Veterinary Corps of the Serbian Army, having given up hospital work" so "she might get closer to the firing line" when Serbia's occupation began.[11] Under occupation, Whitehead's deftness with guns and outdoor skills were to prove more vital than ever before and came in particularly useful for the Scottish Women's Hospitals. Finding themselves frequently targeted by thieves in the form of desperate locals, prisoners of war and enemies alike, the Scottish Women's Hospitals recruited Whitehead as a "guard" in the hopes that she would help to deter the near-daily pillaging of resources and supplies. Her handiness did not go unnoticed by the enemy and by November 24, 1915, Whitehead found herself under the employment of "a German doctor", for whom she tended to "some large and complicated disinfectors".[12]

It is unclear what exactly happened to Whitehead between November 1915 and the end of 1916, but by January 7, 1916, both the Toronto Daily Star and The Globe reported that "Miss Joy Whitehead, a Quebec Athletic Girl" had been "locked up" by the Bulgarians.[13] At the time of being made a prisoner of war, The Globe cites Whitehead "was captured by the Bulgarians while serving with a British veterinary corps in Serbia" – a division she had joined "owing to her knowledge of horses".[14]