Why did Evacuation take place?

This included:

827,000 schoolchildren

524,000 mothers and children under school age

13,000 expectant mothers

103,000 teachers

7,000 handicapped people

One of the main reasons why people were evacuated was that they wanted the public safe from the bombing that was expected.  This was due to the fact that technology had improved considerable since 1918 and the range of the planes had also been improved and also had a better way of delivering bombs.  In 1918 the bombs had to be manually dropped but at the start of the Second World War the system had changed and the bombs could be dropped from the bottom of the plane.  Heavy bombing was likely because Hitler had been building up his airforce the Luftwaffe, despite the Treaty of Versailles, which forbade Germany from building up its airforce.  Hitler then used the Spanish civil war (1936-1937) as a training ground to train his newly recruited pilots.  The damage that they could cause was clearly seen after the bombing of Guernica.  He also used Blitzkrieg tactics that included sending in air attack before ground troops moved in when retaking parts of Europe in the late 1930’s.  This showed the British the power Hitler had and the destruction he could cause. Evacuation was seen as the only way of protecting Britains population from this type of destruction.  Due to the fact that the British men had to go and fight in the war, many jobs were left unattended and, these had to be filled by women whose job before the war had been to look after the families.  Now that their children had gone off to the country and they had no one to look after they were taken on in factories.

 In 1936 Britain had started preparing for war by drawing up a four-year war plan.  This meant that Britain would be ready for war by 1940 at the latest.  In this plan evacuation arrangements were included.  The evacuation had to be started before the end of the four-year war plan as war appeared inevitable in 1939 and by September 1st half a million children had been evacuated.  Heavy bombing was expected in the major British cities and this is why it was mainly from these places that they were evacuated.  Bombing raids were especially dangerous as they mainly took place at night.  This led to the blackout in which the British had to completely darken their windows and stop all light from escaping from their house.  This was to confuse the Germans who now didn’t know what they were bombing.  This led to a even more dangerous style of bombing, carpet bombing.  Bombs were dropped randomly and hit anything in the hope of hitting their primary target.  However many homes were also destroyed and for this reason as many people as possible were evacuated from Britain’s cities.  The Germans hoped that carpet-bombing would lower the morale of the British but all this did instead was to make them even more determined to win the war.  

Gas attacks were also expected and so gas masks were distributed to everyone in case of a gas attack.  People were made to carry them everywhere and the air raid precaution group made sure everyone carried them.  Children’s gas masks were often shaped like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck this was because most children were scared of wearing their gas masks.  As the gas masks were too big for babies specially designed chambers were developed this meant that the entire baby was enclosed in the chamber and someone had to pump air into the chamber.  Evacuation removed children from potential danger of a gas attack but they were still expected to take their masks with them to the reception areas.  

After nothing happened for around a year most parents decided to bring their children home.  This part of the war was called the phoney war but it ended in September 1940 when the blitz started.   London was bombed heavily and a second wave of evacuation began.  I think that the government did the right thing trying to preserve the life of the younger generation.  If the government had not evacuated the children then more people would have been killed.  Overall the government did the right thing and may have saved many lives in a war where more civilians were killed than actual soldiers.