HMS Thunder Child HMS Thunder Child HMS "Thunder Child" is a fictional ironclad torpedo ram of the Royal Navy, destroyed by Martian fighting-machines in H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" whilst protecting a refugee rescue fleet of civilian vessels. Torpedo rams were constructed in the 1870s and 1880s after the ramming and sinking of the "Re d'Italia" at the Battle of Lissa in 1866 by the Austrian flagship, "Ferdinand Max". Despite the Italian warship being stationary at the time, the successful attack influenced naval thinking for the next few decades. The result was specially designed low profile, fast, armoured vessels equipped
HMS Thunder Child ironclads of the main Channel Fleet 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 artefact competing with the Martian fighting-machines on anything like equal terms. In the novel the episode concerning HMS "Thunder Child" is in "Chapter Seventeen: The 'Thunder Child'", ending "Book One: The Coming of the Martians". HMS "Thunder Child" is commonly omitted from adaptations or replaced with technology more appropriate to the updated setting. In Orson Welles's famous 1938