Loben Maund

Rear-Admiral Loben Edward Harold Maund (26 September 1892 – 18 June 1957) was a rear admiral of the British Royal Navy, who served in World War I and World War II. He was the captain of the aircraft carrier when she was sunk in November 1941, but went on to serve in Combined Operations, playing an important role in the development of landing craft.

Biography Maund was born in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, the son of Edward Arthur Maund Entering the Navy on 15 September 1905, he was trained at the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth, and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant on 30 July 1913. The board tempered their judgement with an acknowledgement that a high standard was being expected of Maund, and that he was primarily concerned with the welfare of his crew. Maund returned to the UK and from 1 October 1944 until July 1945 served as Rear-Admiral, Landing Ships and Craft. He was promoted to rear admiral on 1 March 1946.

Post-naval career Maund became a director of the scientific instrument makers A. Kershaw & Sons, Ltd. of Leeds, and wrote a book Assault from the Sea, published in 1949 by Methuen & Co., London, which was his account of the development of the Royal Navy's landing craft and their use operationally between 1939 and 1945. Rear-Admiral Maund died at Fittleworth, Sussex, on 18 June 1957.

Personal life Maund married Edith Mary Collins; they had two sons, Lieutenant Michael Richard Maund DSC, FAA, (1915–1943) and Loben Spencer, who died aged three years, one daughter Rosalind Mary born 1919. In 1933 he married Constance Alice Macartney Iredell.

Loben Maund's brother Pilot Officer Geoffrey Richard Maund died of malaria in Indonesia, in 1942, while a prisoner of the Japanese. Another brother was Air Vice Marshal Arthur Clinton Maund, who also died in 1942 and has an RAF memorial headstone in Brookwood Military Cemetery, Woking.