The British government decided to evacuate children from Britain's major cities at the start of the Second World War for many reasons. The British government were ready for war but had not been preparing for a long time.

the Second World War technology had changed dramatically since the First World War. During the First World War, most of the fighting was taking place in the trenches and away from the civilians for most of the time.  So people were not in as much danger as they were in now in the Second World War. Due to the technological breakthrough over the years leading up to the war, the countries were able to fight now in many ways, on foot, by sea and air. There were new weapons being developed, new boats and panes that were more efficient than before. This increased the predictions of death rates and casualties. Another reason for the government using evacuation would be that the Germans had already used their Blitzkrieg tactic on other countries and were successful; Germany had already done this on Poland, France and other European countries. So the         British realised it would not be long until Germany turn on Britain and use Blitzkrieg on them as well. Blitzkrieg is German for ‘Lightning War’, and it was the key to the rapid German successes in the early in the early part of the Second World War. The Germans wanted surprise and speed, using tanks and planes. Their importance had been seen at the end of the First World War.  Attacks were carried out by first bombing key targets, such as enemy headquarters and centres of communication. At the same time, parachutes were dropped behind enemy lines. Then tanks and trucks containing infantry carried out the main attack. Due to these tactics used by the Germans, it would be too dangerous to have children in the cities. The British knew that a lot of people would be killed so they made sure that these weren’t children. After defeating France, Hitler planned to invade Britain. Once again the Germans stayed with their same tactics of Blitzkrieg but this time making sure they took control of the air against the RAF. In the first week of September, the British lost 185 aircrafts and 300 air men. These statistics show how dangerous the German Luftwaffe was. Surprisingly Hitler decided to change his tactics by bombing major British cities, these started on 7 September 1940 at night on London. The damage done was extreme and shows how ruthless the Germans were and did not care who would die, even children. Over a period of 77 days, London was bombed every night except for one. Other vital cities that were bombed were Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Plymouth, Southampton, Birmingham, Coventry and Glasgow, all of these were bombed at their ports or industrial centres. The bombing of Coventry saw the bombing of industrial targets such as motor works. But the most ruthless was the bombing of the Cathedral. This was used as an act of propaganda war. By the time the Blitz ended in the summer of 1941 about 43,000 people had been killed and 2 million were homeless. These figures would have been higher if children were not evacuated. In the First World War, German air raids killed 1,417 people. By the 1930’s, bombs were much bigger and the British government planners expected far greater casualties. They estimated that 600,000 people would be killed in a few days. They also expected poison gas to be used which would have been used to great effect. In conclusion as you can see from the above reasons on why the British government decided to evacuate the children to the countryside that it was crucial for them to do that because of how ruthless the Germans were. In my opinion I think the most important reason has to be that children are the future and that the Germans would have most definitely killed a lot of people and most of them would have been children if they weren’t evacuated.