The government had seen the power of the Luftwaffe in Spain; the Air Ministry had calculated that just in the first twenty-four hours of the war, the Germans could drop at least three thousand, five hundred tonnes of bombs, so if the government didn’t get the families around the cities, ports, industrial areas etc, then everything and nearly everyone would be destroyed and the government couldn’t let that happen because they needed the morale support off the public.
But the real reason why the government needed to evacuate children was to protect them from the bombings. Industrial areas, ports and major cities were a bombing target for the Germans basically, these places were where trading with other countries and making new materials happened, without industrial areas ports and major cities, Britain would be in tatters as there would be no money left, and this was Germany’s plan, which was to destroy Britain! If children were kept in these places, the children would become extremely distressed, many children would be killed in the bombings and it definitely wouldn’t be a place for children to live and play in.
The living condition as well wouldn’t be at all comfortable and clean. Plus dead children and adults lying about on the streets would be very bad for moral, it would make the government seem they weren’t caring for the public, and then this would look bad from another country’s point of view, so the government had to do this to get both public and other politicians support.
Evacuation was also quite useful for the parents of the children, as it helped the parents concentrate more on the war-effort. Children being around caused distractions, and mothers really need to concentrate on preparing their men for war and keeping the family going and alive.
Numbers of children that were evacuated were quite high, and the government were quite quick moving them, a total of 1,474,000 people were moved in just four days, this shows how quick and efficient the entire transport system was.
The government used posters, leaflets and messages on the radio to persuade parents how important evacuation was. I should think most parents were all for evacuation because they would want to protect their children and at that moment in time, that was the only way they could do it. Though it would have been a very hard and emotional time for both the children and the parents as they didn’t know what was going to happen or even if they were ever to see each other again!