During the war over 3,000,000 children were evacuated into the British countryside and sent abroad to escape the bombing of Britain. Children were evacuated from most of the major cities

The period at the beginning of the war was called the phoney war as nothing happened in Britain so it didn't seem like Britain was involved in the war. During this time many parents brought their children back to the main cities against the advice of the government. This meant that when the battle of Britain started in April almost 80% of the children who had been evacuated returned. Many of the children had to be evacuated again and some of the children that had been evacuated to areas between Norfolk and Sussex had to be re evacuated to South Wales and the Midlands to escape the danger. Some of the children were evacuated to avoid the bombing but others stayed where they were until they had no other choice, like in Birmingham many children weren't evacuated until the water supply was threatened. Also many homes were destroyed so men women and children had to be evacuated because they simply had no where else to go.

After the Battle of Britain was over, 30th October 1940, children who still had homes started drifting back into the major cities again thinking that no more bombs would fall on Britain. However nearly four years later Germans began to use flying bombs and massive V2 rockets launched from France to attack Britain. This meant there had to be another wave of evacuation where children were not only sent to the British countryside but also abroad to places like Canada. The V2 rockets destroyed many peoples homes and forced them out of the cities but the bombing soon stopped and the people began returning to the cities and trying to carry on with their lives.

There are two main reasons why children were evacuated from the major cities in Britain during the second world war and which are fear of being bombed and people being forced out of their homes by bombing. The Government feared the bombing attacks because of what had happened in the Luftwaffe attacks on Barcelona, the testing of German weapons in the Spanish Civil War and how quickly the bombs were dropped during the war in the Far East. If people had done as the government had said and sent their children away to the country at the beginning of the war and left them their to the end then there would only have been one wave of evacuation and it would have been done in a more organised manor. However people missed their children and thought it was needless to keep them away from home when no bombs were falling which meant they were brought back to the cities and had to be evacuated again when the bombs finally started falling. Evacuation was a very necessary precaution of world war two and saved many children's lives.

Georgia Clinton