Evacuation was a Great Success

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 “Evacuation was a great success”

Do you agree or disagree with this interpretation?

Explain your answer using the sources and knowledge from your studies.

 In September 1939, Evacuation was used to give safety to over a million school children living in the larger cities and towns of Great Britain. They were moved temporarily from their homes to places that the government considered safer usually out in the countryside and the more rural areas. The British Government did this as a safety precaution as they had declared a war with Germany; British towns would be targets for bombing raids by aircraft. Evacuation could be considered a success because many poor inner city children who had never experienced rail travel before were able to travel from outside inner cities. Even fewer children had been to the countryside. Many of the children thought evacuation would be something of a holiday or a great adventure.                                                                                        Source A shows a negative about the travel and arrangements of evacuation, trying to show that evacuation may not be a good success as it was disorganised and that the evacuees brought havoc to the countryside and all those that lived within. Those that fostered the children may have been disappointed with the outcome – linking with source H – this may be why there was need for propaganda as they needed encouragement to collect children. This source is strengthened as it seems very reliable, to have educational purposes.

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        Source E mostly contains information on what some evacuees did in their foster homes – the behaviour seems extremely unhygienic. This may have put many people of the city areas as these actions where called ‘city habits’. This gives off the impression that evacuation wasn’t a good success as it didn’t cause any good to those that brought in children – some even questioned whether anything would be much different if they hadn’t been brought down into the countryside. Though, I do know from my own studies that not all children behaved this extreme – only that these actions were ...

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