The bombing was expected to be both heavy and frequent with major cities being targeted as soon as war broke out. Britain had already had some experience of bombing during the First World War but it was expected to be far worse this time. Although bombing had not been widely used in World War One it had accounted for the deaths of over 1500 British citizens. Zeppelin raids were responsible for the majority of these casualties. Zeppelins were first used to bomb Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in January 1915. English ports had also been targeted during the early years of World War One. Due to the inaccuracy of bombing then and the small size of the bombs used these raids cannot have had any military purpose - they were to lower British morale and so weaken the war effort. The bombing had got increasingly heavy as the war progressed despite zeppelin attacks being called off in 1917. Aeroplane technology had greatly improved in the twenty years since the First World War and they were expected to play a larger role in the Second World War.
Although fear of large-scale air attacks was the main reason for evacuating children several other factors encouraged the government in this decision. Britain had had a taste of what air raids were like during zeppelin attacks in World War One. More recently the bombing of Shanghai in 1931 and that of Guernica in 1937 (where German planes and pilots had been used to bomb the city) showed the British government the disastrous consequences of leaving children in cities which were almost certainly going to be targets. As well as the fear of air raids the government also expected Germany to make full use of poisonous gas as a weapon. In preparation for these anticipated gas attacks all people living in Britain were issued with gas masks. Another good reason for sending the children away was that it freed up their parents for important war work in munitions factories and other war-related jobs.
The government began planning the relocation of “school children, children below school age accompanied by their mothers…and expectant mothers” as early as 1934. As well as removing the most vulnerable people from harm this mass evacuation of children also enabled their mothers to work without having children to worry about thus providing the government with the workforce it needed to replace the male workers who had gone to fight. It also helped the parents to work without distraction knowing that their children were safe in the country. Small-scale evacuations were carried out at the height of the Munich Crisis in September 1938 but the real evacuation began in September 1939. The government evacuation plan ‘Operation Pied Piper’ had planned to evacuate about 3,500,000 people but in fact only 1,500,000 made use of the official scheme. By the evening of September 3rd 1939, a few hours after war had been officially declared, 827,000 school children, 524,000 young children and their mothers and 12,000 pregnant women had been successfully removed from the danger zones to safe ‘reception’ areas in the country.
With almost 1,400,000 children relocated to ‘safe’ rural areas people expected the air raids to begin immediately. Nothing happened in the six months following this first evacuation. Parents began to doubt if they had done the right thing in sending their children away and began to make arrangements to bring them home again. During this six-month ‘phoney war’ an estimated one million evacuees had returned home. When the Luftwaffe began in July 1940 another major evacuation took place. Within a few weeks 213,000 unaccompanied children left Britain’s large industrial cities once more for the country. The government also set up a Children’s Overseas Reception Board, which arranged for children to be sent to Canada, the USA, New Zealand and Australia. In the first few months over 210,000 were registered with this scheme. However, after a German torpedo sank the City of Bernares on 17th September 1940, killing 73 children, the overseas program was brought to a halt. On the 7th September 1940, the German air force changed its strategy and began to bomb London and other British cities such as Liverpool, Birmingham, Plymouth and Coventry. The governments’ fears of large-scale bombing raids had been realised. Parents were now desperate to get their children out of target areas and between September 1940 and December 1941 over 1,250,000 were helped by the government to leave the cities.
Throughout these various evacuations the government churned out propaganda to try and get more parents to send their children and to get less parents to take them back. They advertised evacuation as a chance to get their children away from the “crippling dislocation of city life”. They also advertised for ‘foster parents’ in Scotland, Wales and the east of England. From the beginning of Operation Pied Piper the government was extremely organised and efficient, communicating with the potential evacuees’ parents by bulletins issued through the schools. Evacuation was strictly voluntary so the government issued many posters and leaflets designed to persuade parents to send their children away.
The evacuation of children was a genuine effort by the government to protect the vulnerable British citizens in large cities. They based their decision upon expectations of large-scale air raids on cities using bombs and possibly gas. Such ideas had evolved from the first bombing raids in the First World War and seemed borne out by the evidence of the bombing of Guernica and Shanghai. Evacuation seemed to be amply justified for reasons of civilian morale.
