Could the British or French built purpose built landing craft or at least modified cargo and troop ships for the Gallipoli Landings instead of using row boats to offload troops? If so what would such things look like with WW1 tech and who it have made an appreciable difference in the outcoe of the campaign?
I remember reading this when I first read War of the Worlds back, oh, 20 years ago. It moved me then reading how a warship sailed straight into harm's way like that, doomed and damned but refusing to surrender until it took foes with it. Pity the RN never did name a ship Thunder Child.
Thunderchild would be a great name for a warship! Driving a warship into harm's way was part of the RN mentality at that time. The RN invented the modern battleship with the first dreadnought. Beatty lost 3 battlecruisers with almost all hands at Jutland. The Hood was destroyed by the Bismark with just 3 survivors in the Second World War. The only problem with the passage is that warships would never try to close in rather than stand off and just pound away with the guns.
@@ptonpc In the novel Thunderchild was described as a Torpedo Ram which was a smallish warship whereas Jeff Wayne's musical version Richard Burton's narrative described her as a 'massive grey ironclad' which sounds more like a Dreadnougt type battleship either way both descriptions work in their settings
Indeed. Back in 1979, I first bought Jeff Wayne's version in the Navy Exchange at Charleston Naval Base, whilst stationed on my first boat - a two volume set on 8-Track tape - as my first brand new car, a 1979 Ford Mustang, came straight from the factory with an AM/FM/8-Track stereo system, lol. I took both tapes along on patrol, to listen to during my off time, such as when doing laundry. One day, one of my shipmates picked up the second tape of the set to examine it, as he was intrigued listening to my playing the first tape at the time, and fumbled setting it back down, dropping it on the deck, splitting it neatly open and spewing the tape inside everywhere. To say that I was utterly pissed and heartbroken at the same time would have been an understatement. And for years afterwards, whenever I would think to look for a replacement version when out shopping, I was unable to find it on any sort of media. Come the year 2005. I finally traded in my venerable 1987 Subaru station wagon, with cassette stereo, after 18 years of reliable service. It's replacement was a 2005 Jeep Liberty (Cherokee in Drach's part of the world) CRD, one of the relative few sold in the US that year with a diesel engine. Unfortunately for my extensive cassette collection, it's stereo was CD only. That December, in preparation for the 1200 mile drive to visit an old friend and his family in Texas, whilst at a Barnes and Noble, I browsed their music section to find some of these newfangled CD's to listen to on the trip. In the soundtrack section, to my complete amazement and joy, there was a two CD set of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. You would have had an easier time separating the One Ring from Frodo's grasp, than trying to pry those CD's from my hands, until they were safely installed in the Jeep's stereo. And today, 14 years later, those two CD's are still permanently installed inside that vehicle's stereo.
I saw the show in London a few years ago (the very last performance). This scene was bloody incredible (so was the whole show). They captured the warship perfectly in gun barrels, staging and running sailors. The audience was cheering on the jack tars! Fantastic experience.
I have both versions of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds...the old one and the newer one with Liam Neeson as the Narrator. they're both amazing
I'm not going to lie I had "Thunderchild" from Jeff Wayne playing toward the end of this...and I can't lie, with tears in my eyes. Every time I've read this chapter I still want her to live, even though I know she can't, she won't. "They melted the Thunder Child's valiant heart."
Star trek used it in the later films and it appeared in some other mediums, including a comic where it was appropriately lost defending against a coldly implacable enemy.
@@lolroflroflcakes There have been real vessels named after fictional vessels. The USS Nautilus was named after the submarine in 20,000 Leagues, the moon ship Odyssey was named after the ship in 2001, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise was named after the ship in Star Trek. and Many others
Great job... I first read this in 1976 on a very cold afternoon just after the holidays. We'd had a full blown blizzard hammering away at our little rural community for over a day when the electricity winked out from fallen trees. Back then we had a massive wood stove and, so we kept warm as the snow accumulated outside. I sat in front of that stove as the wood snapped and popped. I remember very well reading this confrontation. The books gloomy, overwhelming defeats for humanity up until that point were soul crushing, so when Thunderchild charges in at full speed I was mentally cheering. In the books broader context it might have been just a minor victory, but it demonstrated that humanity wouldn't go gently into the night. Again, great episode... Take care, Rob
I saw the 1953 movie when I was 8. Gave me nightmares...Listened to the '38 radio broadcast in '75. Gave me nightmares. Read the book in'79, thinking I couldn't possibly have dreams about it(haughty teenager now). Super Nightmares!
I read a lot of "scary" books as a kid. As I got older, one by one, they stopped being all that scary...... Except for one, this one. War of the Worlds is a masterpiece of tension and conveying the fear of having something truly alien come after you, one slow but unavoidable step at a time.
Now not as much with modern tech, weapons and optics ect but yes, back in the setting knowing the tech the Thunderchild would have had, very good book, deserves another read
When I read the book as a child, I was moved by the idea of such bravery and self-sacrifice. It moves me all the more after watching this video in the context of the channel, alongside so many other real-life stories of bravery and self-sacrifice. It makes it feel so believable that a Royal Navy ship would do this. Hail to the Royal Navy.
Having never read or watched War of the Worlds, I was on the edge of my seat throughout your reading. Chilling graphics as well. Three CHEERS for the Thunderchild!!! Always a pleasure to listen to your voice. This would be a fine audition tape for audio book publishers. Happy Christmas!
i am going to agree with this. if the engineering job doesn't work out, GOD I would love to hear Drach read the illiad. IN THE ORIGINAL GREEK. Do your homework boy.
I always believed that the captain and crew of HMS Thunderchild knew they were going to their deaths, that they couldn't stand up for long against multiple tripods, but they went in anyway. Their duty demanded no less than they fight and die to buy time for the refugee steamer to escape. They went down swinging to the end, moving swiftly through the water, cannons blazing as she came and brought a mighty metal warlord, crashing down in sheets of flame...
War of the Worlds is my favorite book and I love HMS Thunderchild. There's something amusing about a torpedo ram, which in real life was a footnote in the history of naval design, getting such a heroic moment.
Dont worry chaps the Russian 2nd Pacific squadron will save the day! "Any sign of tripods Kamp chapka?" " No sir but there are plenty of Japanese torpedo boats around! "
This has always been my favourite part of the entire story. I remember first listening to Jeff Wayne's musical version as a child. I didn't understand everything, but this scene has been burned into my mind ever since. To this day I get shivers when they sing "..standing firm between them, there lay Thunder Child!" Even as a child this defiance in the face of overwhelming odds really spoke to me.
I don't think her majesty has that in her, and no offense meant. She might like to sell herself dearly, but, well, practical considerations prevent full exploitation of that sentiment. Queen Mum simply has too many other responsibilities.
I firmly always believed that the captain and crew of HMS Thunderchild knew they were going to their deaths, that they couldn't fight that many tripods, but they went in anyway. Duty demanded no less and by God they went down swinging to the end, cannons blazing as she came...
@@Drachinifel likely something similar.. maybe smaller than HMS Hotspur... with a dual forward turret.. limited secondaries and I'm not sure about the torpedoes... thus all meaningful offence forward.. one of those lovely .. face-on ships.. designed to pay the French a visit in their home ports and rip them apart whilst a supporting battle squadron goes into line to finish off any survivors..
I had no doubt that the captain and crew of the Thunderchild knew they were going to their deaths, but they went in anyway, cannons blazing to the last, because duty demanded nothing less. They went down swinging and fought like lions
When the smoke cleared, the little steamer had reached the misty horizon, and Carrie was safe. But the Thunder Child had vanished forever, taking with her man's last hope of victory. The leaden sky was lit by green flashes, cylinder following cylinder, and no one and nothing was left now to fight them. The Earth belonged to the Martians...
If the Thunderchild had VANISHED ! FOREVER ! They Would have fired there ) D Ray ! ( Green !) Rather than there Heat Ray ! Like they did with the A ! Army ! In the Nineteen Fifty ! Three Movie ! Was ! All they Did ! Was put a Hole ! In the Ship ! ! Set it on FIRE !! The Ships ! Armament !! Stores ! Would have Exploded !! Giving the C.R ! EFFECT !! And the Ocean ! Would have Done the Rest ! By Sinking it ! ! Putting it to the Bottom of the Seabed !! In Pieces !! ( Like the Titanic ! Is ! In the Atlantic ! ) ! Where it's THERE !! TO THIS VERY DAY !! ULLA!! LAA !! LAAHH !!!nm
The BBC manage to ruin their adaption of War of the Worlds by turning it needlessly into a love story The Thunderchild wasn't even mentioned in the beach attack of the tripods only misty grey outlines of warships at sea
Terrible version with super smart n sassy female protagnist ,her dopey boyfriend sacrifices himself for her . Downright dull affair tbh typical bbc trying to make stuff socially relevant . Chucking mixexd race characters
An homage to this occurred in the Movie battleship, when the alien target discriminator couldn't decide if the Missouri was a threat becuase the tech was ancient. Until it fired....
To be fair they actually did consider it a threat as they fired before it did. They just didn't realize how MUCH of a threat is was or how damned tough a battleship is.
Now I understand what you meant when you said that this video would require visuals beyond your normal amount. Storytime with uncle drach was a nice change of pace, I say.
"Sensing victory was nearing Thinking fortune must have smiled People started cheering Come on Thunderchild! Come on Thunderchild!" Please sir, more like this. Loved the images that went along with the text.
Whenever I hear that story, I picture the she ship as HMS Thunderer. I also think of the Crews under Craddock at the battle of Coronel when the Good Hope and Monmouth turned to engage five German cruisers knowing that it meant certain destruction.
Such a story cannot work in the modern world where we have Atomic weapons. Every modern sci fi story has to make the aliens immune to nukes with some random bs like "oh they have energy shields" or some crap!
**Just sit back and imagine..... Imagine how blissfully wonderful it would be to hear this old tale told in modern robo-voice narration... Lol. Seriously though, the channel and its substance was very good to begin with, and switching to your own (human)voice was a great improvement.** Although it's not openly discussed much, many of us(Americans) seem to be factory-tuned to place more value on English accented narration. While they may not admit it, most would rather hear their speeches told with an English accent, as opposed to, uhm, a strong Brooklyn accent! {Ha! As a native North Carolinian, it warms my heart to finally get a jab in to some of the northerners who gave me PURE HELL over my southern accent, for 2 solid years in 7th and 8th grade, after my family was transferred to PA from NC}!
This is the one thing that always peeves me off about modern versions of the War of the Worlds. They don't have the fact that the Martians CAN be beaten by modern weaponry but to translate it to modern times it'd have to be the equivalent of say one of the Experimental railgun armed ships (they do exist, look them up) taking out two before being sunk herself. The only version I've seen do this is the The Great Martian War: 1914-1918 mockumentary where one of the giant alien walkers is taken out by tunneling underneath it and detonating mass amounts of explosives to knock it down.
Somewhere in the afterlife, Thunder Child and SMS Kaiser are seated side-by-side at the bar. One was the wooden warship who sent ironclads fleeing, and the other was the 'steam ram' who brawled with mechs.
Wow. You should do audiobooks, Drachinifel. Nice narrative. My mom introduced me to WAR OF THE WORLDS with the 1953 movie, which is awe-inspiring. Love the novel, too; the ships and the tripods are terrifying. The Thunder Child's stand is epic heroism at it's greatest. Do or die. Thank God for the Navy.
@El Bearsidente Perhaps all the coal dust caked on every available surface would act as a fuel/air bomb the moment a Tripod used its heat ray. The fireball would envelop the firing Tripod and possibly others nearby. The Kamchatka's last act of ineptitude (Excuse me, Martians, but have you seen any Japanese torpedo boats around?) would be as a heroic *unwitting* kamikaze weapon.
This story feels like a reverse Dunkirk. Every available vessel evacuating refugees from England to the Continent while the opposition is held off with a desperate rearguard action.
Wonderful reading! It's always nice to hear your take on things, and this book really captures a certain something about the psyche of the time. For some years, I wondered about how the Martian invasion might influence naval design after it was all over. This is an account from my own writing that touches on the development of an experimental semi-submersible warship designed to combat Martian tripods in littoral waters. I add it here not for self promotion, but on the offhand chance that it might amuse: 'The most tangible fruit of this collaboration [between Royal Navy and French Marine Nationale] was the 'Daedelus', a wryly-named semi-submersible dreadnought that incorporated many experimental features in armament and armor. In battle, she could flood saddle tanks that were akin to torpedo blisters and ride very low in the water. As the Martian heat ray fired strictly in a straight line, she would very difficult to hit at even moderate ranges in any sort of sea. Likewise, water attenuated the heat ray, so hits on the saddle tank would vaporize the water inside, rather that pierce the inner hull. The steam was vented upward, away from the vessel. Balloons and manned kites were tried for shot spotting, but this was discarded as impractical. Experiments were also undertaken to use powerful pumps to spray a curtain of water around the 'Daedelus', both weakening the strength of the heat rays and making her superstructure even more difficult for the Martian gunners to see. It was speculated that the invaders had limited experience with large bodies of water and their characteristics due to at least one tripod pilot firing at a naval target at point-blank range and being burned to death by scalding steam. The great navies of the Earth hoped a recount would put them on top, but few others thought that the Martians would try the same thing twice.'
I’ve always wanted to write some mock historical articles “Tripods in the Tropics:the Caribbean theater of the Martian War” that studies the American and Spanish efforts to defeat Martians that land in Cubs during the Spanish-American War.
If you think about it, sailors fight for their country against all odds in many battles. But only in this one did they get to hear the cheers of the people they were saving. That must have added encouragement, or at least the knowledge that your sacrifice was known and revered.
I was 11 or 12 when I first read War Of The Worlds, and that chapter sparked something in me. I still get a chill when I read it or hear it. Thank you. :)
There’s actually a full book that goes incredibly in depth with thunderchild. It’s called The Last Days of ThunderChild. It really is a fantastic book.
The channel “A well told tale” does a full reading of this old story. I highly recommend! I found one bit of the story amusing. It says the people look at the Martian craft the way an ancient would look at our ironclads. As this line really dates the story because the ironclad was the apex of their technology at the time.
That was great! thank you! My favorite set of lines from that book are: "It is disagreeable for me to recall and write these things, but I set them down that my story may lack nothing. Those who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what is wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to elemental things, will have a wider charity."
Powerful, thank you. The true duty of all military force (land, sea or air) the world over is summed up in this reading - to protect the defenceless and vulnerable.
"It was no disciplined march, but a stampede, without order and without a goal. 6 million people (unarmed and un-provisioned) driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization. The massacre of mankind." One of my favourite lines in the book. I can only read that in Richard Burton's voice. Every time! =)
I got that feeling too. I like to imagine it was an old outdated ship, seeing one last chance to be useful. Doing it’s solemn duty to defend England people to the last rifle
Drachinifel, you did an excellent job with this; the pausing, phrase delivery, the tenor of your voice and numerous intangibles were all spot on. You have a talent for this, it seems. Should you wish to continue with this as another job, your success is assured. Well done, sir, well done.
This scene s one of my favorites...but it has been ignored time and time again in movies.....sad, truly sad...Its n epic of heroic sacrifice...That ship could have slipped away. Only Thier honor and courage kept them there...They turned into the enemy and made the Martians pay in blood for that tiny piece of the empire under their protection.
In Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds, only a handful of characters make a lasting impression. The beaten and weary artilleryman. The crazy parson, almost revelling in his "I told you so!" song of despair. Then there's the journalist himself, of course. And the gray ironclad Thunderchild Yes, the parson's wife died ('off screen') and she is gone and forgotten. But we remember the Thunderchild.
Fantastic! Well done. The graphics were great, because they helped non-British to understand the place names, but were not distracting from the narrative.
The book is so much better than even the best of the films, mainly because the Martians, while unbeatably tough, are not invincible, and do take damage from soldiers and sailors with the guts to stand up and fight them. It's always fun to speculate how the Martians would fare against other ships, such as, for example, a Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser, popping off Martian tripods at long range with Standard missiles, or Fletcher class destroyers, peppering the tripods with 5" shells.
It's still a great story, like there's a lot going on, a lot that's a reflection of the time it was written and a lot that's also just very accurate predictions. Like one thing that stands out is how the travel from London to the shore is considered a two day journey when these days it's a few hours in a car. And also you can see how Wells uses the ironclads as a symbol of the most advanced technology of the time which is definitely true, like this scene does a lot, it appeals to the patriotism of the reader at the time and then also establishes how powerful the Martians are by showing that it takes an entire warship to just take on a few. It's also honestly one of the more realistic alien invasion stories specifically because they're coming from Mars. The problem with a lot of those stories is that any species that has the technology to travel between solar systems also has the technology to wipe us out in an instant, but to just travel between Earth and Mars you'd only really need roughly 1970s technology and like the Martians sorta seem to be there at least with weapons. The heat ray is the only thing that ended up being way more advanced than Welles imagined, but I mean replace that with say a recoilless rifle firing HEAT and you basically have ta similarly effective weapon.
Such a lost chance in the 2005 Tom Cruise movie! The scene is recreated on the Hudson River, but with no Thunder Child. But what could have been? Wisconsin was still theoretically able to activate. Des Moines hadn't yet been scrapped! Can you imagine the scene with either of them flying up the river at the Martian? Guns blazing again and again, as the alien rays fired back? They'd probe deeper and deeper into the ship's vitals, but the inertia tens of thousands of tons of armor would keep her moving long enough to impact the walker's shield. The bow would crumple. Skin would peel away like an egg. Then, just as the muzzle of the last remaining gun in A turret struck the invisible barrier, a dying sailor trips the gun! The titanic concussion of two tons of armor piercing shell at point blank range is too much for a shield that has already been weakened by the titanic mass of the old ship. In a galvanic explosion, ship and walker are both blasted skyward in a single explosion that takes them both to their watery graves. A thousand men sacrificed themselves, but the remaining walkers pause in confusion and twice that number of civilians escape to the opposite shore. Why on earth did nobody think of this?!
Honestly, as for why nobody thought of it, I'd say it's simply because that film simply isn't very good. It was more of a cash-grab than anything, it seemed to me
The intensity of that chapter is full-on. And it's even worse when you consider that, with only tripods to deal with, Mankind's most powerful weapons were barely able to contain the foe. When it is revealed at the end that the Martians are now *flying* in a war machine... well. Nicely read too.
This has always been one of my favorite parts of the original novel, and I have no idea why none of the movies/series etc that have been made of "War of the Worlds" have never used it. Seems like it would make a good scene.
I read "War of the Worlds" probably 50 years ago, and remember that sequence. Unlike the movie, the machines in the book did not have impenetrable force fields and there were occasions where an artillery gunner would land a shell directly in the cockpit and shred the Martian, but the losses of Brits vs Martians were asymmetric, to say the least. The Captain of the Thunderchild was clearly related to Captain Evans of the Johnston.
Awesome. Thanks for the map etc. It really allowed me to place where these events "took place". I read this book as a teen when I lived a long way away and was very taken when I moved down to London and could find all the places.
Fantastic. I listened to this just before bed last night, and I got to wondering about Thunderchild. No, there wasn't a real HMS Thunderchild, the book was written in the 1890s, but according to Wikipedia there were vessels after which it was modeled. HMS Polyphemus was armed with a ram bow, torpedoes, was fairly small at 240 feet long, 2,640 tons. It had 1 inch Nordenfelt guns (sort of a multibarrel machine gun).
The steamer began to move slowly away but on the landward horizon appeared the silhouette of a fighting machine. Another came, and another, striding over hills and trees, plunging far out to sea and blocking the exit of the steamer. Between them lay the silent, grey Ironclad "Thunder Child". Slowly it moved towards shore; then, with a deafening roar and whoosh of spray, it swung about and drove at full speed towards the waiting Martians...
I remember reading this book and cheering for the only weapon that seemed to work against these guys, completely forgot about it til you brought it back up. Thank you!
Such a powerful chapter - and very well read. It's as if Wells had seen events like the Blitzkrieg and the commuters leaving Manhattan on foot in the aftermath of 9/11.
@@10gamer64 from how the book described it and the lack of Thunderbird's remains it seems to have exploded, I think the guns where melted by that point.
i think Jeff Wayne's musical version is the closest to the spirit of the book , i hate to say it but it always brings a tear to my eyes when i listen to it . The futile bravery and sacrifice
OOOLONG! Sorry. I've listened to the LP to many times. Minor note some may like: Thunderchild is an Akira class heavy escort in Star Trek, appears in First Contact. It is destroyed, but becomes the lead ship of a new class based on an upgraded Akira (STO canon). It is explicitly named after the War of the Worlds ship. So yes, Star Fleet is full of nerds.
Quick and dirty research time. Conqueror class, perhaps a Rupert. Both were ram equipped pre dreadnought battleships of low free board. Possibly a Hotspur.
If we're talking about the Martians as they are written in the original novel, then pretty much anything post WW1 is a victory for Humanity. With the Tripods being vulnerable to 1890's field artillery guns, the advent of mechanized warfare, the advances in chemical warfare countermeasures (To counter The Black Smoke) and the introduction of airpower, the Martians are now at a serious disadvantage.
Funny enough a heat ray would be very dangerous as a naval weapon as it's range is as far as you can see or detect, it;s instant and very few things could resist a hit from it for long. Even if used to just shoot down incoming missiles it would be deadly if connected to a smart enough computer system.
@@RomanHistoryFan476AD The heatray is a direct fire weapon though, meaning that the Yamato actually has a range advantage, since its 18inch main guns were actually capable of firing OVER the curvature of the Earth and she had radar for detection and fire control. If we take the Martians' capabilities as only those described in the book or the Jeff Wayne musical, then it seems unlikely they could win
From the description, it seems like the Thunderchild is based on a Civil War era iron clad ram. The CSS Stonewall is a good example, strip the sails off and it matches the description all but perfectly.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
In terms of their technology who was more superior? The IJN or Kriegsmarine?
P-51 as a carrier based fighter?
What’s the most accurate depiction of a warship in fiction, and what the worst?
Could the British or French built purpose built landing craft or at least modified cargo and troop ships for the Gallipoli Landings instead of using row boats to offload troops? If so what would such things look like with WW1 tech and who it have made an appreciable difference in the outcoe of the campaign?
Well Done Drachinifel, well done indeed, better than the BBC version.
9:58 "She seemed, poor woman, to imagine that the French and the Martians might prove very similar." So H G Wells also predicted Drachisms? Amazing.
That does sound exactly like a Drachism
I remember reading this when I first read War of the Worlds back, oh, 20 years ago. It moved me then reading how a warship sailed straight into harm's way like that, doomed and damned but refusing to surrender until it took foes with it. Pity the RN never did name a ship Thunder Child.
Probably cause it's a cursed name.
Thunderchild would be a great name for a warship! Driving a warship into harm's way was part of the RN mentality at that time. The RN invented the modern battleship with the first dreadnought. Beatty lost 3 battlecruisers with almost all hands at Jutland. The Hood was destroyed by the Bismark with just 3 survivors in the Second World War.
The only problem with the passage is that warships would never try to close in rather than stand off and just pound away with the guns.
In the novel Thunderchild is even more bad ass than she is in Jeff Wayne's version.
@@ptonpc In the novel Thunderchild was described as a Torpedo Ram which was a smallish warship whereas Jeff Wayne's musical version Richard Burton's narrative described her as a 'massive grey ironclad' which sounds more like a Dreadnougt type battleship either way both descriptions work in their settings
@@davidthefirst6195 I'm thinking more along the lines of Thunderchild on the novel kills two Martians while in Jeff Wayne's version she only gets one.
My favourite part of the whole story. Jeff Wayne's Thunderchild song still sends shivers down my spine.
th-cam.com/video/tb4BWSUV8mM/w-d-xo.html
Indeed. Back in 1979, I first bought Jeff Wayne's version in the Navy Exchange at Charleston Naval Base, whilst stationed on my first boat - a two volume set on 8-Track tape - as my first brand new car, a 1979 Ford Mustang, came straight from the factory with an AM/FM/8-Track stereo system, lol.
I took both tapes along on patrol, to listen to during my off time, such as when doing laundry. One day, one of my shipmates picked up the second tape of the set to examine it, as he was intrigued listening to my playing the first tape at the time, and fumbled setting it back down, dropping it on the deck, splitting it neatly open and spewing the tape inside everywhere. To say that I was utterly pissed and heartbroken at the same time would have been an understatement. And for years afterwards, whenever I would think to look for a replacement version when out shopping, I was unable to find it on any sort of media.
Come the year 2005. I finally traded in my venerable 1987 Subaru station wagon, with cassette stereo, after 18 years of reliable service. It's replacement was a 2005 Jeep Liberty (Cherokee in Drach's part of the world) CRD, one of the relative few sold in the US that year with a diesel engine. Unfortunately for my extensive cassette collection, it's stereo was CD only.
That December, in preparation for the 1200 mile drive to visit an old friend and his family in Texas, whilst at a Barnes and Noble, I browsed their music section to find some of these newfangled CD's to listen to on the trip. In the soundtrack section, to my complete amazement and joy, there was a two CD set of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. You would have had an easier time separating the One Ring from Frodo's grasp, than trying to pry those CD's from my hands, until they were safely installed in the Jeep's stereo.
And today, 14 years later, those two CD's are still permanently installed inside that vehicle's stereo.
I saw the show in London a few years ago (the very last performance). This scene was bloody incredible (so was the whole show). They captured the warship perfectly in gun barrels, staging and running sailors. The audience was cheering on the jack tars! Fantastic experience.
@@mitchelloates9406 lol great tale, thanks for sharing!
I have both versions of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds...the old one and the newer one with Liam Neeson as the Narrator. they're both amazing
I'm not going to lie I had "Thunderchild" from Jeff Wayne playing toward the end of this...and I can't lie, with tears in my eyes. Every time I've read this chapter I still want her to live, even though I know she can't, she won't. "They melted the Thunder Child's valiant heart."
Looks like Drach has to do a 5 minute guide on the HMS Thunderchild now.
Would be good to have something on Torpedo-Rams.
Probably in very early April…
I would like to hear his version of how this creature would lool if it had existed.
RIP Thunder McThunderface and her gallant crew
Bernard Mitchell You are a prophet
The chances of this not being good are a million to one against.
Martian: I am advanced heat ray tech fear my physics
Thuderchild: I am 9,000 tons at speed fear MY physics
Also... Thunderchild: We are the Royal Navy, Fear our sheer BALLS!
Martian: "Our superior intellect is no match for their puny weapons!"
@@VidkunQL Thunderchild: *ENGLAND EXPECTS!!!*
Physical metrics are universal between both Earth and Mars.
Seems they just brought the wrong ruler.
Nobody asked but I don't care. HMS Thunderchild moving at speed has about 576.4 megajoules of energy.
"Thunderchild" is such a cool name for a war ship, it's sad no real vessel bore that name.
Star trek used it in the later films and it appeared in some other mediums, including a comic where it was appropriately lost defending against a coldly implacable enemy.
@@DrewLSsix Star Trek ships were not real.
Pretty much every organization is bad at coming up with names, it's always either name it after a person or they go full gravitas overload.
@@lolroflroflcakes There have been real vessels named after fictional vessels. The USS Nautilus was named after the submarine in 20,000 Leagues, the moon ship Odyssey was named after the ship in 2001, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise was named after the ship in Star Trek. and Many others
@@erictaylor5462 enterprise was named after star trek? Not the ww2 cv?
Great job... I first read this in 1976 on a very cold afternoon just after the holidays. We'd had a full blown blizzard hammering away at our little rural community for over a day when the electricity winked out from fallen trees. Back then we had a massive wood stove and, so we kept warm as the snow accumulated outside. I sat in front of that stove as the wood snapped and popped. I remember very well reading this confrontation. The books gloomy, overwhelming defeats for humanity up until that point were soul crushing, so when Thunderchild charges in at full speed I was mentally cheering. In the books broader context it might have been just a minor victory, but it demonstrated that humanity wouldn't go gently into the night.
Again, great episode... Take care, Rob
I saw the 1953 movie when I was 8. Gave me nightmares...Listened to the '38 radio broadcast in '75. Gave me nightmares. Read the book in'79, thinking I couldn't possibly have dreams about it(haughty teenager now). Super Nightmares!
"And then there came....The Kamchatka."
well played
A rewrite of War of the World but instead the Kamchatka somehow through sheer incompetence makes the Martians lose.
The Kamchatka probably asked the martians, if they see torpedo boats and then their brains exploded out of confusion.
BEST COMMENT AWARD OF 2019!
Sir, you are today's winner of the internet
Brave Thunderchild! Dammit, I remember reading this the first time getting tears in my eyes.
A bit like reading about HMS Glowworm or HMS Jervis Bay.
I read a lot of "scary" books as a kid. As I got older, one by one, they stopped being all that scary...... Except for one, this one. War of the Worlds is a masterpiece of tension and conveying the fear of having something truly alien come after you, one slow but unavoidable step at a time.
Now not as much with modern tech, weapons and optics ect but yes, back in the setting knowing the tech the Thunderchild would have had, very good book, deserves another read
When I read the book as a child, I was moved by the idea of such bravery and self-sacrifice. It moves me all the more after watching this video in the context of the channel, alongside so many other real-life stories of bravery and self-sacrifice. It makes it feel so believable that a Royal Navy ship would do this. Hail to the Royal Navy.
There is no higher calling than the protection of others
Having never read or watched War of the Worlds, I was on the edge of my seat throughout your reading. Chilling graphics as well.
Three CHEERS for the Thunderchild!!!
Always a pleasure to listen to your voice. This would be a fine audition tape for audio book publishers.
Happy Christmas!
i am going to agree with this.
if the engineering job doesn't work out, GOD I would love to hear Drach read the illiad. IN THE ORIGINAL GREEK. Do your homework boy.
A superb work of fiction worthy of being read.
I always believed that the captain and crew of HMS Thunderchild knew they were going to their deaths, that they couldn't stand up for long against multiple tripods, but they went in anyway. Their duty demanded no less than they fight and die to buy time for the refugee steamer to escape. They went down swinging to the end, moving swiftly through the water, cannons blazing as she came and brought a mighty metal warlord, crashing down in sheets of flame...
War of the Worlds is my favorite book and I love HMS Thunderchild. There's something amusing about a torpedo ram, which in real life was a footnote in the history of naval design, getting such a heroic moment.
Bedtime stories with Uncle Drach? I guess it's an early bedtime for me tonight!
That's what am doing. On bed under a blanket. Listening to the story.. oh God it's 2 am, Need to get up at 6...
I wonder if i would a nightmare if I watch it before bed it morning here btw
@@USSAnimeNCC- Yeah not really a tale before bed, unless you like night terrors.
With a wee bit of Scotch.....
Dont worry chaps the Russian 2nd Pacific squadron will save the day! "Any sign of tripods Kamp chapka?" " No sir but there are plenty of Japanese torpedo boats around! "
[Horrified utterance in Russian]
@@ashn1729 мы действительно так плохи?
"LAUNCH THE POISON SNAKE!!!"
Perhaps the Martians would be vulnerable to thrown binoculars?
This has always been my favourite part of the entire story. I remember first listening to Jeff Wayne's musical version as a child. I didn't understand everything, but this scene has been burned into my mind ever since. To this day I get shivers when they sing "..standing firm between them, there lay Thunder Child!" Even as a child this defiance in the face of overwhelming odds really spoke to me.
And with a blinding whoosh of spray, it swung about and drove at full speed towards the waiting martians!
God I love the delivery of this
May Her Majesty honor the sacrifice of the Thunderchild, selling herself dearly to buy the civilians time enough to flee.
A deed that would make the Queen (or anyone) very proud indeed.
There needs to be a HMS Thunderchild in the Royal Navy
I don't think her majesty has that in her, and no offense meant. She might like to sell herself dearly, but, well, practical considerations prevent full exploitation of that sentiment. Queen Mum simply has too many other responsibilities.
I firmly always believed that the captain and crew of HMS Thunderchild knew they were going to their deaths, that they couldn't fight that many tripods, but they went in anyway. Duty demanded no less and by God they went down swinging to the end, cannons blazing as she came...
weldonwin England expects that every man will do his duty
I was expecting a piece-by-piece breakdown of HMS Thunderchild
That's for next year :)
@@Drachinifel likely something similar.. maybe smaller than HMS Hotspur... with a dual forward turret.. limited secondaries and I'm not sure about the torpedoes... thus all meaningful offence forward.. one of those lovely .. face-on ships.. designed to pay the French a visit in their home ports and rip them apart whilst a supporting battle squadron goes into line to finish off any survivors..
piritskenyer Me too actually
Me also, but seeing it all mapped out was great.
I wanted to see the engineering drawings.
"HMS Thunderchild": Sailing against the murderous Martian bounders with Royal Navy courage, to protect the nation...no matter the cost.
I had no doubt that the captain and crew of the Thunderchild knew they were going to their deaths, but they went in anyway, cannons blazing to the last, because duty demanded nothing less. They went down swinging and fought like lions
Rip gigachad HMS Thunder Child
When the smoke cleared, the little steamer had reached the misty horizon, and Carrie was safe. But the Thunder Child had vanished forever, taking with her man's last hope of victory. The leaden sky was lit by green flashes, cylinder following cylinder, and no one and nothing was left now to fight them. The Earth belonged to the Martians...
If the Thunderchild had VANISHED ! FOREVER ! They Would have fired there ) D Ray ! ( Green !) Rather than there Heat Ray ! Like they did with the A ! Army ! In the Nineteen Fifty ! Three Movie ! Was ! All they Did ! Was put a Hole ! In the Ship ! ! Set it on FIRE !! The Ships ! Armament !! Stores ! Would have Exploded !! Giving the C.R ! EFFECT !! And the Ocean ! Would have Done the Rest ! By Sinking it ! ! Putting it to the Bottom of the Seabed !! In Pieces !! ( Like the Titanic ! Is ! In the Atlantic ! ) ! Where it's THERE !! TO THIS VERY DAY !! ULLA!! LAA !! LAAHH !!!nm
UUUHHHHHHLAHHHHHH!
It matters not if the earth belongs to the Martians, for the waves yet belongs to Britain!
The BBC manage to ruin their adaption of War of the Worlds by turning it needlessly into a love story The Thunderchild wasn't even mentioned in the beach attack of the tripods only misty grey outlines of warships at sea
They didn't want to 'trigger' our delicate sensibilities with big, toxic, masculine hunks of iron colliding and exploding.
@El Bearsidente Is buggering a naval term ;)
Yeah I held out hope with the adaptation until they completely ruined the scene for HMS Thunderchild.
Who are trying to kid? We all know that the BBC could fuck up a wet dream.
Terrible version with super smart n sassy female protagnist ,her dopey boyfriend sacrifices himself for her . Downright dull affair tbh typical bbc trying to make stuff socially relevant . Chucking mixexd race characters
An homage to this occurred in the Movie battleship, when the alien target discriminator couldn't decide if the Missouri was a threat becuase the tech was ancient. Until it fired....
When Battleship, the movie literally based on a BOARD GAME, has a more endearing homage to the War of the Worlds than the War of the Worlds film...
Damn it man your good!
and its guns were pointing the wrong way.
To be fair they actually did consider it a threat as they fired before it did. They just didn't realize how MUCH of a threat is was or how damned tough a battleship is.
Now I understand what you meant when you said that this video would require visuals beyond your normal amount.
Storytime with uncle drach was a nice change of pace, I say.
Bleedin’ Martians. They come over ‘ere with their fancy black smoke....who’d they think are, eh?!
Can we all agree that The Thunderchild is the coolest ship name ever conceived.
D Harkins hmmmm nah, I have to go with Dreadnought.
Warspite gets a pretty good number of points in my book tbh.
@@DuraLexSedLex
Yep, Warspite all the way.
No, we can't.
@@rictusmetallicus Ok how about it's the coolest fictional ship name ever
"Sensing victory was nearing
Thinking fortune must have smiled
People started cheering
Come on Thunderchild!
Come on Thunderchild!"
Please sir, more like this. Loved the images that went along with the text.
Whenever I hear that story, I picture the she ship as HMS Thunderer. I also think of the Crews under Craddock at the battle of Coronel when the Good Hope and Monmouth turned to engage five German cruisers knowing that it meant certain destruction.
This was absolutely fantastic......what a pleasant surprise. It really would be fantastic if the Royal Navy did ever name a ship Thunderchild.
Star trek had a uss thunderchild i recall
One of my biggest surprises when I finally read War of the Worlds was the fact that the tripods were actually vulnerable to human weapons.
Well, no matter how advanced you are, you're still subject to the laws of physics...
I was surprised the martians didn't have antibiotics
@@soundslave They had no microbial life of any kind on Mars, according to the narrator.
Such a story cannot work in the modern world where we have Atomic weapons. Every modern sci fi story has to make the aliens immune to nukes with some random bs like "oh they have energy shields" or some crap!
Yeah, essentially every adaptation makes the tripods invinciblr
**Just sit back and imagine..... Imagine how blissfully wonderful it would be to hear this old tale told in modern robo-voice narration... Lol. Seriously though, the channel and its substance was very good to begin with, and switching to your own (human)voice was a great improvement.**
Although it's not openly discussed much, many of us(Americans) seem to be factory-tuned to place more value on English accented narration. While they may not admit it, most would rather hear their speeches told with an English accent, as opposed to, uhm, a strong Brooklyn accent! {Ha! As a native North Carolinian, it warms my heart to finally get a jab in to some of the northerners who gave me PURE HELL over my southern accent, for 2 solid years in 7th and 8th grade, after my family was transferred to PA from NC}!
This is the one thing that always peeves me off about modern versions of the War of the Worlds. They don't have the fact that the Martians CAN be beaten by modern weaponry but to translate it to modern times it'd have to be the equivalent of say one of the Experimental railgun armed ships (they do exist, look them up) taking out two before being sunk herself.
The only version I've seen do this is the The Great Martian War: 1914-1918 mockumentary where one of the giant alien walkers is taken out by tunneling underneath it and detonating mass amounts of explosives to knock it down.
Somewhere in the afterlife, Thunder Child and SMS Kaiser are seated side-by-side at the bar. One was the wooden warship who sent ironclads fleeing, and the other was the 'steam ram' who brawled with mechs.
Wow. You should do audiobooks, Drachinifel. Nice narrative. My mom introduced me to WAR OF THE WORLDS with the 1953 movie, which is awe-inspiring. Love the novel, too; the ships and the tripods are terrifying. The Thunder Child's stand is epic heroism at it's greatest. Do or die. Thank God for the Navy.
No,no,no. You should have started: are you sitting comfortably? And then said shall we begin.
19:01 Kamchatka: Torpedo Boats. Dakadakadaka
Kurtis Boyer 😂😂😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
HMS Thunderchild vs the 2nd Pacific squadron.... torpedo boats attacking.... cheer goes out as Kamchatka blows up....
I was thinking the same thing!
@@blogsblogs2348 No one mentions that all of the guns of 2nd Pacific were pointing at Kamchatka just before she goes boom..
@El Bearsidente Perhaps all the coal dust caked on every available surface would act as a fuel/air bomb the moment a Tripod used its heat ray. The fireball would envelop the firing Tripod and possibly others nearby. The Kamchatka's last act of ineptitude (Excuse me, Martians, but have you seen any Japanese torpedo boats around?) would be as a heroic *unwitting* kamikaze weapon.
Some of these interpretations of the walkers are amazing. Thunderchild always gets me pumped.
This story feels like a reverse Dunkirk. Every available vessel evacuating refugees from England to the Continent while the opposition is held off with a desperate rearguard action.
Wonderful reading! It's always nice to hear your take on things, and this book really captures a certain something about the psyche of the time.
For some years, I wondered about how the Martian invasion might influence naval design after it was all over. This is an account from my own writing that touches on the development of an experimental semi-submersible warship designed to combat Martian tripods in littoral waters. I add it here not for self promotion, but on the offhand chance that it might amuse:
'The most tangible fruit of this collaboration [between Royal Navy and French Marine Nationale] was the 'Daedelus', a wryly-named semi-submersible dreadnought that incorporated many experimental features in armament and armor. In battle, she could flood saddle tanks that were akin to torpedo blisters and ride very low in the water. As the Martian heat ray fired strictly in a straight line, she would very difficult to hit at even moderate ranges in any sort of sea. Likewise, water attenuated the heat ray, so hits on the saddle tank would vaporize the water inside, rather that pierce the inner hull. The steam was vented upward, away from the vessel. Balloons and manned kites were tried for shot spotting, but this was discarded as impractical. Experiments were also undertaken to use powerful pumps to spray a curtain of water around the 'Daedelus', both weakening the strength of the heat rays and making her superstructure even more difficult for the Martian gunners to see. It was speculated that the invaders had limited experience with large bodies of water and their characteristics due to at least one tripod pilot firing at a naval target at point-blank range and being burned to death by scalding steam. The great navies of the Earth hoped a recount would put them on top, but few others thought that the Martians would try the same thing twice.'
I’ve always wanted to write some mock historical articles “Tripods in the Tropics:the Caribbean theater of the Martian War” that studies the American and Spanish efforts to defeat Martians that land in Cubs during the Spanish-American War.
Bravo! Your narration made the story come alive. Thank you for your time and effort.👍⚓️⚓️🛸🛸⚓️⚓️👍
Damnit Drach, gimme a moment, someone is cutting onions.
Fantastic work. I'm very impressed. Kudos sir.
"COME ON, THUNDER CHILD!!"
Thank you Michael. It's nice to see someone spell the name of the ship correctly. 'Thunder Child' not 'Thunderchild'.
If you think about it, sailors fight for their country against all odds in many battles. But only in this one did they get to hear the cheers of the people they were saving.
That must have added encouragement, or at least the knowledge that your sacrifice was known and revered.
I was 11 or 12 when I first read War Of The Worlds, and that chapter sparked something in me. I still get a chill when I read it or hear it. Thank you. :)
There’s actually a full book that goes incredibly in depth with thunderchild. It’s called The Last Days of ThunderChild. It really is a fantastic book.
The channel “A well told tale” does a full reading of this old story. I highly recommend! I found one bit of the story amusing. It says the people look at the Martian craft the way an ancient would look at our ironclads. As this line really dates the story because the ironclad was the apex of their technology at the time.
th-cam.com/play/PL3rkKR0yL0Xvo6PO6cCtObKh1m5dEYRr8.html
Irish James Thanks for link. I fudged the name in my op I corrected my mistake. Great telling of that tale!
That was great! thank you! My favorite set of lines from that book are:
"It is disagreeable for me to recall and write these things, but I set them down that my story may lack nothing. Those who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what is wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to elemental things, will have a wider charity."
Powerful, thank you. The true duty of all military force (land, sea or air) the world over is summed up in this reading - to protect the defenceless and vulnerable.
The RN never concerns itself with the odds!
"It was no disciplined march, but a stampede, without order and without a goal. 6 million people (unarmed and un-provisioned) driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization. The massacre of mankind."
One of my favourite lines in the book. I can only read that in Richard Burton's voice. Every time! =)
Thunder child, "go home son, you don't want any of this."
Martians, "come at me brah!"
TC (rolling up shirtsleeves), "all right, time to do work"
I got that feeling too. I like to imagine it was an old outdated ship, seeing one last chance to be useful. Doing it’s solemn duty to defend England people to the last rifle
Drachinifel, you did an excellent job with this; the pausing, phrase delivery, the tenor of your voice and numerous intangibles were all spot on. You have a talent for this, it seems.
Should you wish to continue with this as another job, your success is assured. Well done, sir, well done.
This scene s one of my favorites...but it has been ignored time and time again in movies.....sad, truly sad...Its n epic of heroic sacrifice...That ship could have slipped away. Only Thier honor and courage kept them there...They turned into the enemy and made the Martians pay in blood for that tiny piece of the empire under their protection.
Excellent maps. Thanks! Great reading!
I just want to thank you for this, War of the Worlds is one of my favorite books and this was amazing.
In Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds, only a handful of characters make a lasting impression. The beaten and weary artilleryman. The crazy parson, almost revelling in his "I told you so!" song of despair.
Then there's the journalist himself, of course.
And
the gray
ironclad
Thunderchild
Yes, the parson's wife died ('off screen') and she is gone and forgotten.
But we remember the Thunderchild.
Fantastic! Well done. The graphics were great, because they helped non-British to understand the place names, but were not distracting from the narrative.
This chapter always makes me cry, thinking about the valiant crew of the Thunder Child. Fiction I know, but still examples of fine sailors.
A fitting lineage for a Federation starship at the Battle of Sector 001!
You brought the suspense and terror that the original author intended, even to a whole new level with the visuals... well done sir, well done.
This video and yours about the Thunderchild itself convinced me to get the book. It's a good read, thanks.
The book is so much better than even the best of the films, mainly because the Martians, while unbeatably tough, are not invincible, and do take damage from soldiers and sailors with the guts to stand up and fight them. It's always fun to speculate how the Martians would fare against other ships, such as, for example, a Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser, popping off Martian tripods at long range with Standard missiles, or Fletcher class destroyers, peppering the tripods with 5" shells.
A great book. I've read it a few times over the years and yes the book is much better than the movies. 👍
It's still a great story, like there's a lot going on, a lot that's a reflection of the time it was written and a lot that's also just very accurate predictions. Like one thing that stands out is how the travel from London to the shore is considered a two day journey when these days it's a few hours in a car. And also you can see how Wells uses the ironclads as a symbol of the most advanced technology of the time which is definitely true, like this scene does a lot, it appeals to the patriotism of the reader at the time and then also establishes how powerful the Martians are by showing that it takes an entire warship to just take on a few. It's also honestly one of the more realistic alien invasion stories specifically because they're coming from Mars. The problem with a lot of those stories is that any species that has the technology to travel between solar systems also has the technology to wipe us out in an instant, but to just travel between Earth and Mars you'd only really need roughly 1970s technology and like the Martians sorta seem to be there at least with weapons. The heat ray is the only thing that ended up being way more advanced than Welles imagined, but I mean replace that with say a recoilless rifle firing HEAT and you basically have ta similarly effective weapon.
Such a lost chance in the 2005 Tom Cruise movie! The scene is recreated on the Hudson River, but with no Thunder Child. But what could have been? Wisconsin was still theoretically able to activate. Des Moines hadn't yet been scrapped! Can you imagine the scene with either of them flying up the river at the Martian? Guns blazing again and again, as the alien rays fired back? They'd probe deeper and deeper into the ship's vitals, but the inertia tens of thousands of tons of armor would keep her moving long enough to impact the walker's shield. The bow would crumple. Skin would peel away like an egg. Then, just as the muzzle of the last remaining gun in A turret struck the invisible barrier, a dying sailor trips the gun! The titanic concussion of two tons of armor piercing shell at point blank range is too much for a shield that has already been weakened by the titanic mass of the old ship. In a galvanic explosion, ship and walker are both blasted skyward in a single explosion that takes them both to their watery graves. A thousand men sacrificed themselves, but the remaining walkers pause in confusion and twice that number of civilians escape to the opposite shore.
Why on earth did nobody think of this?!
Could've even gone the way of the 53 film and used fast moving aircraft. Would've been better than what we thought.
Honestly, as for why nobody thought of it, I'd say it's simply because that film simply isn't very good. It was more of a cash-grab than anything, it seemed to me
Had the song stuck in my head for a week and just re-read War of the Worlds. Wild.
Period maps and a British narration! Waiting for this since I read the book in 1978...Thank you very much!
Whenever I read/hear the story about Thunderchild, I feel like I'm on of the cheering crowds putting my last hope on to the mighty warship.
War of the Worlds was my favorite HG Wells book. This engagement was a great chapter in it.
The intensity of that chapter is full-on. And it's even worse when you consider that, with only tripods to deal with, Mankind's most powerful weapons were barely able to contain the foe. When it is revealed at the end that the Martians are now *flying* in a war machine... well.
Nicely read too.
This has always been one of my favorite parts of the original novel, and I have no idea why none of the movies/series etc that have been made of "War of the Worlds" have never used it. Seems like it would make a good scene.
Held out hope that it would get a big scene in BBCs newest adaptation, it gets what could be considered a 'cameo scene' and that was about it.
I forgot how gruesome this chapter was. This will be the next bedtime story for my grandkids.
Thanks, Drachinifel!
Thunderchild sounds like the name of an epic heavy metal album
I read "War of the Worlds" probably 50 years ago, and remember that sequence. Unlike the movie, the machines in the book did not have impenetrable force fields and there were occasions where an artillery gunner would land a shell directly in the cockpit and shred the Martian, but the losses of Brits vs Martians were asymmetric, to say the least. The Captain of the Thunderchild was clearly related to Captain Evans of the Johnston.
Awesome. Thanks for the map etc. It really allowed me to place where these events "took place". I read this book as a teen when I lived a long way away and was very taken when I moved down to London and could find all the places.
O thats a nice five minutes, those maps really help picture some of the happenings.
Good job, a very good job, right there.
Fantastic. I listened to this just before bed last night, and I got to wondering about Thunderchild. No, there wasn't a real HMS Thunderchild, the book was written in the 1890s, but according to Wikipedia there were vessels after which it was modeled. HMS Polyphemus was armed with a ram bow, torpedoes, was fairly small at 240 feet long, 2,640 tons. It had 1 inch Nordenfelt guns (sort of a multibarrel machine gun).
Well narrated. Around me as I listened to Drach, People started cheering.... "cmon Thunderchild "
Thank you Drach. Without doubt my favourite book and chapter. Thank you for your work and channel. Always something that I look forward to.
Very cool! The original story is still a fascinating read today.
The steamer began to move slowly away but on the landward horizon appeared the silhouette of a fighting machine. Another came, and another, striding over hills and trees, plunging far out to sea and blocking the exit of the steamer. Between them lay the silent, grey Ironclad "Thunder Child". Slowly it moved towards shore; then, with a deafening roar and whoosh of spray, it swung about and drove at full speed towards the waiting Martians...
That map is very useful. The chapter rattles of so many English Town and village names a foreigner gets immediately lost in.
I remember reading this book and cheering for the only weapon that seemed to work against these guys, completely forgot about it til you brought it back up. Thank you!
Such a powerful chapter - and very well read. It's as if Wells had seen events like the Blitzkrieg and the commuters leaving Manhattan on foot in the aftermath of 9/11.
Bravo sir! Excellent work!
I've bought the book because of this video! Tank you Sir!
I assume the third tripod was destroyed by the exploding debris of Thunderchild.
Or was pulled under by the undertow created by the Thunderchild's crew's massive solid iron balls
If not destroyed seriously damaged
Or maybe the thunderchild fired its last shots
@@10gamer64 from how the book described it and the lack of Thunderbird's remains it seems to have exploded, I think the guns where melted by that point.
@@RomanHistoryFan476AD true
Excellent! Thank you very much. The only thing that would make it better would be if you did a complete reading of the entire book.
Damn! Now I've got to find a copy of the book and re-read it. Well done, Drach!
Now this is something that j would like to see get a proper release. A war of the worlds m ik nj series but actually set in period and location.
the BBC really blew this scene , completely missed the point
Right? HG Wells' words, and Drach's reading is more evocative than the BBC series by far.
It's the one scene nobody has ever gotten right sadly.
@@luketfer Yeah, and Jeff Wayne's musical War of the Worlds, The Game sadly only had ironclads...
i think Jeff Wayne's musical version is the closest to the spirit of the book , i hate to say it but it always brings a tear to my eyes when i listen to it . The futile bravery and sacrifice
Yeah...was really holding out hope we'd see a version of this scene in the BBC version and, as you said, they blew it.
OOOLONG!
Sorry. I've listened to the LP to many times.
Minor note some may like: Thunderchild is an Akira class heavy escort in Star Trek, appears in First Contact. It is destroyed, but becomes the lead ship of a new class based on an upgraded Akira (STO canon). It is explicitly named after the War of the Worlds ship. So yes, Star Fleet is full of nerds.
I loved this book and the Thunder Child is my favorite part. Thanks for reading it.
Haven't heard that in years..a very nice reading sir!
And I can think of a few contemporary "Coastal Defense" ships which could have been Thunder child
Quick and dirty research time. Conqueror class, perhaps a Rupert. Both were ram equipped pre dreadnought battleships of low free board. Possibly a Hotspur.
I take it all back.. a Polyphemus fits the bill quite nicely! (1881-1903) protected torpedo boat (ram)
Perhaps this'll help? th-cam.com/video/pQBund8uLmo/w-d-xo.html lol
Next time in ship versus series:
Battleship Yamato VS Tripod
Iowa vs tripod is much more decisive.
18pdr guns kill a tripod so yamato would have an way time
If we're talking about the Martians as they are written in the original novel, then pretty much anything post WW1 is a victory for Humanity. With the Tripods being vulnerable to 1890's field artillery guns, the advent of mechanized warfare, the advances in chemical warfare countermeasures (To counter The Black Smoke) and the introduction of airpower, the Martians are now at a serious disadvantage.
Funny enough a heat ray would be very dangerous as a naval weapon as it's range is as far as you can see or detect, it;s instant and very few things could resist a hit from it for long. Even if used to just shoot down incoming missiles it would be deadly if connected to a smart enough computer system.
@@RomanHistoryFan476AD The heatray is a direct fire weapon though, meaning that the Yamato actually has a range advantage, since its 18inch main guns were actually capable of firing OVER the curvature of the Earth and she had radar for detection and fire control. If we take the Martians' capabilities as only those described in the book or the Jeff Wayne musical, then it seems unlikely they could win
From the description, it seems like the Thunderchild is based on a Civil War era iron clad ram. The CSS Stonewall is a good example, strip the sails off and it matches the description all but perfectly.
Naturally just like the English to cheer "TWO!" I'd have been happy to see just ONE go down.
My favorite chapter as well. Very exciting. Without it, a little violent success, the book would be a real slog.