Her life is summed up in the Navy Casualty Lists as "3rd Officer, WRNS, Aguila, steamship, 19 August 1941,(Cormorant, O/P) MPK" in a sterile fashion, but Third Officer Isabel Milne Home, WRNS was one of the officers supervising top Wren telegraphists in the Royal Navy in 1941 along with seven other Third Officers and a Second Officer. A select few WRENS had been put through a grueling, competitive course to become chief wireless telegraphers, with the accompanying elevation in rank upon successful completion. These telegraphers were, along with the Wren officers and one QARNNS nurse, to be transferred to Gibralter for wireless and cipher duty there.
The twenty two Wrens selected departed on the SS Aguila carrying a cargo of 397 bags of mail in a general cargo of 1,288 tons on 12 August 1941 as a part of Convoy OG-71 en route to Gibraltar from Liverpool. The convoy, consisting of twenty three merchant ships and escorted by six corvettes and two destroyers, was attacked by German submarines while off the south western coast of Ireland. Aguila was attacked by German submarine U-201 and sunk. The torpedo hit the Aguila amidships sending her to the bottom in ninety seconds. There were only 16 badly injured survivors, leaving a death toll of 145. Not a single one of the twenty-two Wrens aboard survived.
As a tribute to their memory, a lifeboat named 'Aguila Wren' was built and launched on June 28, 1952, for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Third Officer Milne Home was the of Sir John Hepburn Milne Home, Kt., D.L., J.P., and of Lady Milne Home, of Walkerburn, Peeblesshire. She was a friend of Roxanne Houston, WRNS, author of "Changing Course" who makes a reference to Isabel's death in that book.
She is honoured on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Panel 61, Column 1
The twenty two Wrens selected departed on the SS Aguila carrying a cargo of 397 bags of mail in a general cargo of 1,288 tons on 12 August 1941 as a part of Convoy OG-71 en route to Gibraltar from Liverpool. The convoy, consisting of twenty three merchant ships and escorted by six corvettes and two destroyers, was attacked by German submarines while off the south western coast of Ireland. Aguila was attacked by German submarine U-201 and sunk. The torpedo hit the Aguila amidships sending her to the bottom in ninety seconds. There were only 16 badly injured survivors, leaving a death toll of 145. Not a single one of the twenty-two Wrens aboard survived.
As a tribute to their memory, a lifeboat named 'Aguila Wren' was built and launched on June 28, 1952, for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Third Officer Milne Home was the of Sir John Hepburn Milne Home, Kt., D.L., J.P., and of Lady Milne Home, of Walkerburn, Peeblesshire. She was a friend of Roxanne Houston, WRNS, author of "Changing Course" who makes a reference to Isabel's death in that book.
She is honoured on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Panel 61, Column 1
Her life is summed up in the Navy Casualty Lists as "3rd Officer, WRNS, Aguila, steamship, 19 August 1941,(Cormorant, O/P) MPK" in a sterile fashion, but Third Officer Isabel Milne Home, WRNS was one of the officers supervising top Wren telegraphists in the Royal Navy in 1941 along with seven other Third Officers and a Second Officer. A select few WRENS had been put through a grueling, competitive course to become chief wireless telegraphers, with the accompanying elevation in rank upon successful completion. These telegraphers were, along with the Wren officers and one QARNNS nurse, to be transferred to Gibralter for wireless and cipher duty there.
The twenty two Wrens selected departed on the SS Aguila carrying a cargo of 397 bags of mail in a general cargo of 1,288 tons on 12 August 1941 as a part of Convoy OG-71 en route to Gibraltar from Liverpool. The convoy, consisting of twenty three merchant ships and escorted by six corvettes and two destroyers, was attacked by German submarines while off the south western coast of Ireland. Aguila was attacked by German submarine U-201 and sunk. The torpedo hit the Aguila amidships sending her to the bottom in ninety seconds. There were only 16 badly injured survivors, leaving a death toll of 145. Not a single one of the twenty-two Wrens aboard survived.
As a tribute to their memory, a lifeboat named 'Aguila Wren' was built and launched on June 28, 1952, for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Third Officer Milne Home was the of Sir John Hepburn Milne Home, Kt., D.L., J.P., and of Lady Milne Home, of Walkerburn, Peeblesshire. She was a friend of Roxanne Houston, WRNS, author of "Changing Course" who makes a reference to Isabel's death in that book.
She is honoured on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Panel 61, Column 1
The twenty two Wrens selected departed on the SS Aguila carrying a cargo of 397 bags of mail in a general cargo of 1,288 tons on 12 August 1941 as a part of Convoy OG-71 en route to Gibraltar from Liverpool. The convoy, consisting of twenty three merchant ships and escorted by six corvettes and two destroyers, was attacked by German submarines while off the south western coast of Ireland. Aguila was attacked by German submarine U-201 and sunk. The torpedo hit the Aguila amidships sending her to the bottom in ninety seconds. There were only 16 badly injured survivors, leaving a death toll of 145. Not a single one of the twenty-two Wrens aboard survived.
As a tribute to their memory, a lifeboat named 'Aguila Wren' was built and launched on June 28, 1952, for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
Third Officer Milne Home was the of Sir John Hepburn Milne Home, Kt., D.L., J.P., and of Lady Milne Home, of Walkerburn, Peeblesshire. She was a friend of Roxanne Houston, WRNS, author of "Changing Course" who makes a reference to Isabel's death in that book.
She is honoured on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial on Panel 61, Column 1
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Portsmouth Naval Memorial
Panel 61, Column 1
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