An internationally recognised vascular surgeon, Charles Rob made important innovations in the management of aortic aneurysm. He was born on 4 May 1913, the son of Joseph William Rob OBE, a family doctor in Weybridge, Surrey. His mother was descended from Edward 'Grog' Vernon, who introduced the rum ration to the Royal Navy. He was educated at Oundle and St John's College, Cambridge, where as a keen climber he distinguished himself by putting an open umbrella on one of the spires of King's College. At Cambridge he joined the university air squadron, gained his wings and received a reserve commission in the RAF. He went up to St Thomas's for his clinical training and graduated in 1937. After two years in junior posts at St Thomas's, he gained his FRCS. At the outbreak of the second world war, he was at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, but he soon returned to London, to St Thomas's, where he worked throughout the Blitz. When St Thomas's took over Hydestile Hospital, near Godalming, he was made resident assistant surgeon. In April 1942 he joined the RAMC and was posted to the 1st Parachute Brigade as a surgical specialist. In November of that year, the 1st Parachute Battalion was ordered to seize the airfield at Souk el Arba and the road junction at Beja, 90 miles east of Tunis. The battalion was dropped over Souk el Arba and was followed, the next day, by No 1 Section 16th Parachute Field Ambulance, commanded by Captain Wright and supported by No 1 Surgical Team led by Lieutenant Rob. At Beja the medical team requisitioned the French garrison school and converted it into a makeshift hospital. They then set up an operating theatre in the wing of the civilian hospital. On 20 November the town was bombed, causing many civilian casualties, and Rob performed more than 150 operations, with Wright acting as anaesthetist. While he was treating his patients, a bomb fell outside the building and Rob suffered fractures to his left tibia and kneecap. He continued to work and the next day performed 22 more operations. When supplies of blood and plasma ran short, he gave a pint of his own blood to try to save the life of a wounded soldier. The team stayed for 24 days, in the course of which they treated 238 patients, many of whom had open fractures and multiple wounds. For this Rob was awarded the Military Cross. After the action in Tunisia he went on to serve in command of a field surgical unit in Sicily and Italy, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After the war, he returned to the surgical staff of St Thomas's. In 1950 he was appointed Professor of Surgery at St Mary's, where he made important innovations in vascular surgery, chief of which was the use of frozen (later freeze-dried) cadaver arterial grafts which revolutionised the management of aortic aneurysm, and was followed by surgery for carotid artery stenosis. He was consulted by Sir Winston Churchill, and by members of the Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti royal families. He became consultant vascular surgeon to the British Army. In 1960, he moved to America, to take up an appointment as chairman of the department of surgery at the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York, where he continued to develop the technique of vein by-pass grafting. In 1978 he moved to East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, as Professor of Surgery, and in 1983 joined the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences at Bethesda, near Washington DC. A man with a commanding presence and great charm, he wrote well, published more than 200 papers, and, together with Rodney (later Lord) Smith, co-edited the multivolume *Operative surgery* (London, Butterworths, 1956), which became the standard work of reference in every specialty. Among innumerable honorary degrees and fellowships he was awarded the René Leriche prize of the International Surgical Society, the highest tribute to a vascular surgeon. He married in 1941 Mary Dorothy Elaine Beazley, a 'Nightingale' at St Thomas's. They had two sons, John and Peter; two daughters, Rebecca and Caroline; and eight grandchildren. He died on 26 July 2001 in Vermont.