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HMS Thunder Child is the fictional ironclad torpedo ram of the Royal Navy destroyed by Martian fighting-machines in H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds.
Description Wells gives only a rough description of the ship, describing her thus: “About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a water-logged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child.” A few paragraphs later, he is slightly more specific: "It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping." Warships armed with rams at this time were not uncommon. The only torpedo ram (a specialised ramship) ever commissioned in the Royal Navy was ''Polyphemus'', a unique design (low hull with a lightly-armoured turtle-back, a battery of submerged torpedo tubes (which she was the trials vessel for) and a ram-prow), with no sister ships, she may have been some inspiration for the description of Thunder Child. In Jeff Wayne's musical adaptation, the ship is described as an ironclad rather than a torpedo ram; the album cover illustration of Thunder Child clearly resembles a pre-dreadnought battleship such as the ''Canopus''-class vessel HMS ''Ocean''. Due to the ambiguity of the text and the common nature of the ram feature on warships of the time (ram tactics were even used during WW1), it is impossible to arrive at a definitive realistic analogue. The ship is also depicted in art in the Classics Illustrated comic book adaptation of the novel, also appearing as a typical pre-dreadnought battleship. Previous history Thunder Childs early career is not described in the book, which concerns itself solely with the last minutes of her existence. The battle On a Wednesday evening, immediately after the Martians conquered London and the surrounding areas, large number of refugees were attempting to escape by sea from Tillingham Bay on the Essex coast. Included in the rag-tag fleet of ships was a paddle wheel steamer laden with characters important in the novel and other refugees from London. (Note that contrary to popular misconception (and reproduced in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds), this battle did not occur in the Thames estuary, which had been rendered untenable, but off the mouth of the River Blackwater, Essex.) Three Martian tripod fighting-machines approach the area. HMS Thunder Child, a torpedo ram patrolling about two miles away, race to engage them, but without firing. The reasons she did not use her torpedoes is not difficult to presume; hitting the narrow legs of the fighting-machines would be very unlikely. The narrator says why she did not fire her guns: since her guns remain quiet as she charges the tripods, she is not seen as a threat, and therefore is not immediately destroyed by their Heat-Ray. In both cases, the crowded and turbulent mass of refugee shipping stretching from Foulness to the Naze may have influenced the captain's decision. The Martians, who are unfamiliar with large warships (there being no large bodies of water on Mars), at first respond to Thunder Childs charge with only a gas attack, which is ineffective against the moving ship. After seeing the ship's continued advance, the Martians deploy their Heat-Ray, which inflicts tremendous damage on Thunder Child. She is, however, able to ram one of the fighting-machines, destroying it. Now between the remaining two Martians, in sinking condition but with steering and propulsion still functional, Thunder Child turns toward a second fighting-machine and begins to use her guns. Although she appears to score no significant hits, and one of her misses sinks a nearby fishing smack, she is able to set a collision course with one of the Martians before the Heat-Rays find her again. The resulting catastrophic explosion of her boilers and ammunition magazines destroy Thunder Child, but the thousands of tons of incandescent wreckage strike the Martian machine, crumpling it like cardboard. Thunder Child is lost, but her valiant attack occupied the Martians long enough for three other Royal Navy ironclads to arrive. The fate of the third Martian fighting machine is not revealed by Wells, but the battle did enable the civilian shipping to escape. As depicted in the book, Thunder Child is the only human artifact which can compete with the Martian fighting-machines on anything like equal terms, the battle clearly giving a morale boost to hard-pressed humanity. Influence A song entitled "Thunder Child" in Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds is dedicated to the drama of this scene. Cover art of the album depicts the ship in combat with tripods. The artwork of the ship appears to be based on an artist's impression of the Battle of Coronel (1 November 1914), in which the two outdated British armoured cruisers, ''Good Hope'' and ''Monmouth'', were sunk with all hands off the coast of Chile by a German fleet of five modern cruisers commanded by Vizeadmiral Maximilian von Spee. No ship of the Royal Navy has ever been named HMS Thunder Child, the closest names used being ''Thunderbolt'' and ''Thunderer''. However, in the fictional universe where the Star Trek series takes place, a Federation ''Akira'' class starship is named USS Thunderchild in honour of Wells' fictional ship, and fights against the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact. In the computer game Mechwarrior 4, there is a destroyer named Thunderchild. The monthly science fiction and fantasy webzine The Thunder Child was named in honour of this ironclad. In the science fiction roleplaying game Traveller: the New Era (TNE), a Reformation Coalition "clipper"-class starship was named RCS Thunderchild in honor of the War of the Worlds vessel. The ship's patch, presented in the TNE sourcebook Star Vikings, shows the influence of the Jeff Wayne image of the ironclad, combined with a 19th century image of the Martian war machine. Details also appear in the TNE products Path of Tears and Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide. In other adaptations Of the various adaptations and updates only the Jeff Wayne musical and the Pendragon film, both of which play out in the novel's depicted period, feature the ship. In H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds by Pendragon Pictures, the Thunder Child ironclad design was used from the torpedo boat destroyer, HMS Ranger rather than using the designs of HMS Polyphemus. During the film, the ironclad has no crew members present either on deck or the turrents when they are fired, only 2 shots from the film show signs of a crew. When the ship is first seen in the film, there are other ironclads that are similar to the Thunder Child except are smaller and have an extra funnel (once again with no sign of any of the crew). At the start of the battle, the Thunder Child speeds forward, narrowly missing a tripod machine. Once the ship is clear, the other tripod machine blasts a hole in the side of the ironclad. Despite the damage, the ship speeds on, firing its cannons at the nearby tripod machine which successfully hits the hood with Martian inside causing the tripod to collapses in the sea. The ironclad (with the damage from eariler absent) charges at full speed towards one of the other tripods, which notices the sightings of the other ironclad ships in the distance. The Martian is caught by the surprise of the speeding ironclad, is hit and shatters into pieces. With the damage on the front bow of the ship (as well as the damage from eariler on returned) results in the ship sinking. Nothing else is shown of the third tripod or the other ironclads. Other adaptations are set later and feature human war technology of the time. In the 1953 film the last-ditch defense is an atomic bomb which, despite being man's most incredible weapon, is as useless as every other physical attack against the invaders. In Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds American military forces (using tanks and helicopters, which were introduced within the past few decades) try to hold back the aliens' tripods so refugees in their path can make it to safety. (The film also features a scene in which the invaders aim for a refugee boat, that may have some basis in the Thunder Child chapter; however, as it lacks any defense, it is not spared from destruction.) Unlike Thunder Child, however, in neither re-creation is there even a temporary victory, and the war machines are not damaged, let alone destroyed, since in both films the machines have impenetrable shields that are only later bypassed in unrelated circumstances. Another analogue of Thunder Child is the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber in Orson Welles's famous radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds, which tries to damage a tripod by crashing into it before being destroyed by the fighting-machine's Heat-Ray. In Scarlet Traces, a sequel set a decade after the events of the story, the ship (spelt erroneously as Thunderchild) and its efforts are remembered. One of the supporting characters is a survivor of the ship's destruction, presumably the only one who did so. There is also a monument dedicated to the ship's fight against the Martians. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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