Ronald Desmond Hobden was born at North Bondi, New South Wales to David James and Annie Rees (née Roberston) Hobden on 8 November 1923. The youngest of four children, he grew up in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney where his father, a buttermaker from Grafton, worked as a labourer.
Ronald Desmond Hobden enlisted as ordinary seaman on 24 November 1941 at Sydney, one of many in the Hobden family who served in the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. He departed on HMAS Cerberus on 19 January 1942. By October that year he had been promoted to able seaman. In January 1948 he was promoted to acting leading seaman before returning to Australia to get married. At twenty four years old, Ronald Desmond Hobden married Heather Joy Baker in Grafton Baptist Church while wearing his naval uniform. The next year Hobden was confirmed leading seaman. Hobden was discharged after 22 years of service with the RAN on 23 November 1963 while a constable posted on HMAS Kuttabul II.
Ronald Desmond Hobden and his wife Heather Joy moved to Carlingford New South Wales where Ronald worked as a dockyard policeman and Heather as a nurse. They had five children together with one of their sons, Gary Desmond, enlisting in the Royal Australian Navy in 1966. Ronald Desmond Hobden died on 12 September 1998, mere months after the death of his wife. They are buried together in Lawn Cemetery, Grafton, New South Wales.