-H.M.S. Hood Crew Information-
H.M.S. Crew List

It is estimated that as many as 18,000 men served aboard the 'Mighty Hood' during the operational portion of her 21 year career. Unfortunately, there is no surviving official single listing of ALL men who served in her. Here you will find our attempt at creating such a listing. We are using the few, fragmentary crew lists known to exist, Navy Lists, various official reports, public records, and most importantly of all, inputs from the families of former crew.

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Isaac John Maunder

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Date of birth: 5th January 1896
Place of birth: Portsmouth, Hampshire, England
Previous occupation: Labourer
Service: Royal Navy
Rank: Mechanician 2nd Class
Service Number: KX88499









Biographical Information: Isaac John Maunder (known as Jack) had an interesting and unusual career, spanning two World Wars and three separate guises. Born in the naval dockyard city of Portsmouth, Jack joined the Royal Navy in April 1914, at the age of 18, having been schooled at the Royal Hospital School, then in Greenwich. On enlistment, he was drafted as a Stoker 2nd class to the Royal Naval Barracks, HMS Victory (since renamed HMS Nelson) in his home city.

As a stoker, he would have expected to be sent to sea to look after the machinery of a warship but instead, in September 1914, just five months after joining up and one month after the outbreak of World War I, he was drafted to Hawke Battalion of the Royal Naval Division and sent to the Western Front as a soldier. He was captured in December that same year, and spent the remaining four years of the War as a prisoner of war.

Jack elected to remain in the Royal Navy at the end of WWI, and he did so well in the Stoker branch (the RN's semi-skilled engineering cadre) that in July 1925 he was selected for transfer to the Mechanician branch, equivalent to the fully-skilled Artificer branch.

Jack qualified for a Royal Navy pension in April 1936, after 22 years' service, but elected to remain in the service, initially for another three years. It was during this time that he served in HMS Hood, from September 1936 until March 1939 and saw service in Spanish waters as part of the neutrality patrol required during the Spanish Civil War. With the advent of World War II, Jack's engineering skills were still required, so he remained in the RN throughout that war. Although he spent most of WWII in shore drafts, he did spend six months in the battleship HMS Nelson in 1940.

Having sustained injuries in an air raid, Jack finally left the RN, invalided out, in 1946, after 32 years' service. The string of annual 'Superior' assessments on his record attest to his professional excellence.

In civilian life, he carved out a new career as a publican in his native Portsmouth. He died in his home city on 8th April 1970.


Additional Photographs
None at this time.


Memorials
No known memorials


Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
'Register of Deaths of Naval Ratings' (data extracted by Director of Naval Personnel (Disclosure Cell), Navy Command HQ, 2009)
Peter Maunder, grandson, biographical information April 2020, photograph February 2023.