Section B
Before the war broke out in 1939, predictions of how many bombs would be dropped. The government predicted that 3500 tons of bombs could be dropped each day. The British government felt that a war was close to break out. The British government start making plans of defending their next generation. A way of defending them was by evacuating them out of the cities and into places where it was safe. This was to make sure the children could carry on the war if they needed to. In 1939 a major propaganda campaign started to make parents make children leave the cities. Most parents accepted evacuation and were sent into countries where it was safe and where foster parents looked after them. Most of the foster parents where criticised. During 1939 to 1940 there was not much action; this was called the phoney war. During this time many stopped wearing gas masks and children went back into cities, because they were homesick and nothing dangerous happened in the cities. The government tried to stop this from happening but with no success.
Sources B and E suggests that evacuation was not a success. Source tells B you about a teacher remembering being evacuated with children from her school. The purpose of this source is to let you think how peoples felt about being evacuated. So says she that ‘the children were too afraid to talk’ showing that the children didn’t feel vey comfortable. This also shows that children where bored as the Source B says ‘All you could hear was the feet of the children and a kind of murmur’ shows that nothing exciting was happening. ‘We hadn’t the slightest idea where we were going’ which shows that the teacher transporting the children didn’t know if they were ever going or if they were going to be safe with their foster parents which some children weren’t. So how were the teachers supposed to console the children’s parents if teachers didn’t even know the destination? This was a major factor contributing to the “drift back” mentality, which resulted in lots of children returning to the cities just in time for the start of the Blitz. Source B is reliable as it is pure memory from a teacher remembering being evacuated and this source is useful, because it gives historians a brief image of how some teacher experience was and this also shows how smoothly evacuation went, however this source is also very limited as not every teacher had the same experience. Source E is an interview with a father in the South of England of a seven years old child about why he doesn’t let his son go. The aim of this source is to show how the British government failed to convince some areas to evacuating their children. When the father is asked about what peoples feel towards evacuation he replies by saying 'Peoples are so funny here; first they say they'll send them, then they say they won't'. This suggests government haven't done enough to convince the thousands of parents in this man's area to evacuate including the father himself. This father doesn't let his child go, because his view is that 'they can't be looked after where they're sending them'. He thinks this, because he has the view that the Shires Wakes and west where starving before. He has probably his view based on the gossips and rumours of the peoples living in his area. Also he is worried that if he got killed there would be plenty of his family in his area to look after his son however this wouldn't be the case if his child were evacuated. This source is reliable as it was an interview with a father in May 1940, which couldn't have been bias, because it is an extract from a Mass Observation Survey. This source is also very useful as it tells you how some areas thought about evacuation and how they had one whole view as an area.
