Thunder Child - Definition

HMS Thunder Child is the name of the steamship that is supposed to save the people of London from the attacking Martians in the 1898 novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. The Thunder Child is sunk after ramming a wading Martian tripod, the wreckage of the ship then colliding with another tripod, destroying it. but other ships make it to safety due to her effort.

Wells gives only a rough description of the ship, describing her as an ironclad torpedo ram (the immediate predecessor to modern dreadnought battleships). The only torpedo ram in the Royal Navy was the HMS Polyphemus, a unique design with no sister ships, that may have inspired the description of the Thunder Child

A song entitled Thunderchild in Jeff Wayne's musical version of the book 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the ship appears to be based on an artist's impression of the Battle of Coronel (November 1st, 1914), in which the two outdated British ironclads, HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth, were ambushed and sunk with all hands off the coast of Chile by Admiral Maximilian von Spee's fleet of five battleships.

In the Star Trek universe, an Akira class starship is named in honor of Wells' fictional ship.

External Link

• War of the Worlds text (http://www.wells.omnia.co.uk/war-worlds/xviithethunderchild.htm)

Example Usage of Thunder