1 GLASGOW-born WREN Sheila Murray, who saw Hitler’s deputy parachute on to the Eaglesham Moors, had a narrow escape during the Second World War. She was one of the first 20 members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service to pass safely through the Suez Canal, which had just re-opened, and reach South Africa. The ship which followed was torpedoed and all Wrens on board were killed.

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2 Sheila was born in Glasgow in 1919, the daughter of Ella and Herbert Stewart and sister to Betty and Eileen. After WW2 was declared, she got a job with the Duchess of Montrose, helping her answer requests for help from South African and Rhodesian servicemen. Her obituary in our sister newspaper The Herald noted: “Nights were also spent ripping out socks which had been poorly knitted by volunteers, then re-knitting them to be donated to the servicemen.”

Glasgow Times:

3 During her service with the Wrens, she witnessed Royal Air Force pilots forcing Hess to parachute out of his plane near Glasgow. The next day, she and many others hiked up to Floors Farm where Hess had landed.

Glasgow Times: Sheila Murray

4 Sheila was one of the last Wrens to return to Britain after helping to sort and destroy records after the end of the war. She met former Prime Minister Winston Churchill after being demobbed on her return to Britain, and she became secretary to an MP with the Scottish Unionist Party.

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5 Determined to marry the love of her life, Frank Murray, who was living in India, she flew out there by herself in 1948, even though all leave had been cancelled. She and other passengers were held in Cairo after a coup d’etat. The Herald noted: “Of her marriage ceremony, she would say: ‘I knew none of my bridesmaids or the man who gave me away, but I did know the groom.’” She died in New Jersey in 2012, aged 93.