This may point out the inaccuracy of the source. However this maybe due to the fact that the interview was made in 1988. The eyewitness may have misremembered as the event was over 40 years ago. Although this was an isolated incident and does not reflect any of the other evacuations, this is a first hand eyewitness report from someone who was there. Therefore Source C is useful because there must be a certain degree of accuracy.
In my opinion both sources are reliable and useful in their own way. They both contain elements of truth and fact that can be backed from my own knowledge or from other sources. However, both sources contain the fundamentals of possible unreliability. In Source B the photograph could have been posed or the eyewitness in source C could have misremembered. However source C gives a true eyewitness report that gives real insight into the conditions of evacuation. Most of the facts in this source can be backed and it gives more useful information for the start of the children’s evacuation journey. I therefore think that Source C is more useful as evidence about the start of the children’s evacuation journey.
- Source G is an extract from a novel. Is it reliable as evidence about evacuees? Explain your answer using Source G and knowledge from your studies.
Source G tells us of some children who have been evacuated to an upper class Lady’s house. The extract tells us of a situation where the Lady asks the children to put on some slippers and the children have none, leading the Lady to assume they are too poor to afford them. Source G is a simple description of the evacuees in the hands of the host family. It shows how different the country people were from the town people. It is useful as it is a description for children about the evacuation and the host families. I know from other sources and my own knowledge that a lot of host families were shocked at what they saw from the evacuees. Indeed in Source E the host families’ Mother said ‘Our house stank to high heaven’. Commenting on the way the children never used the toilets provided but always urinated on the walls. There was a big difference between the working class from the city and the middle class/upper class of the countryside and vice-versa. The difference in class meant that both parties had to adjust to their new life. Source E is supported by source A, as source A also talks about the evacuee’s bad manners. However this interchange between the classes could be seen as a blessing in disguise. After all it did break down the walls of prejudice between the classes and showed the true ugliness of the lowers classes’ situation. This brought on a Social Reform later on during the Churchill years.
Source F was from an interview by a middle class evacuee from the city, who we assume from what she says that she was living with a working class family from the countryside. Source F doesn’t really contradict source E but just puts across the situation from a different perspective in that she was the one who had the cultural shock not the host as it appeared in source E. The host from source E would have had a different reason for taking in an evacuee to the host of the evacuee from source F. The host from source E would have probably agreed to having a evacuee out of duty or pity and not because of the money, whereas the host of the evacuee in source F would have been a lot less wealthy and therefore could have agreed to having an evacuee because of the fact that hosts got paid money.
However, Source G in itself is different from the other sources as they were taken from interviews of eyewitness from the evacuation period. Unlike Source G which is taken from a novel written by an author who probably wasn’t involved in the evacuation. We cannot make that assumption but we can question the reliability of the source as it was written in 1973 for a children’s story. Not only was it written 29 years after the last evacuation but it has been written for a story which is unlikely to contain the entire truth about the evacuation.
I therefore conclude that Source G is not reliable as evidence about evacuees.
- “Evacuation was a great success.” Do you agree or disagree with this interpretation? Explain your answer using the sources and knowledge from your studies.
Before I answer the question I would like to raise the main aims of evacuation.
The government had secretly planned for evacuation in 1935, but after the Munich Conference in 1938 war seemed unavoidable, so detailed plans for evacuation were made by the government. The evacuation was also brought on partially because of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 which was the first war to use aircraft to bomb civilians. This came as a shock to Britain and there was a fear of direct attack on Britain from Germany. In September 1939 the first evacuation was carried out. Over 1.5million people were evacuated.
At the same time German troops crossed the border of Poland, much to the surprise of Britain. In reaction to this the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, declared war on Germany. This was radioed to the British nation but the news came as little surprise as it had been clear for some time that war was coming. Now that Britain were at war the expectation was that Britain and its population would come under immediate attack by the German air force. Air raids were expected on British cities and people prepared for the attacks. Immediately the long prepared plans for evacuation were put into practice. It was to be the biggest movement of people in British history. There were huge precautions taken:
- The government issued 38 million gas masks by September 1938 in case of gas attack.
- Government and civic buildings were sandbagged for protection since 5% of all British property was expected to be destroyed in the first 3 weeks of the air raids.
- The government issued thousands of papier-mâché and cardboard coffins
- Hospitals were told to prepare over 2,800,000 hospital beds.
- Air raid sirens had been set up since 1937. The frequent air raid siren tests did not boost moral in Britain.
- Over 2 million air raid shelters were given out to people in Britain who made less than £250 a year. They were made from corrugated iron and able to house up to 6 people.
- Air Raid Precaution committees were set up by local councils as early as 1938. They were to organise teams of ARP wardens.
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The ‘Blackout’ was a huge task that was put into practice up and down Britain. It meant people were not allowed to use any lights during the hours of darkness so cities could not be seen by German pilots. The first nation wide blackout was on 1st September 1939.
Evacuation began on 1st September 1939, two days before Britain went to war. Experts said 10,000 people would be killed everyday by German bombers. This meant that children, pregnant mothers, the sick/disabled/handicapped and the elderly were all to be evacuated out of harms way. Evacuees went to country areas where no bombs fell. They stayed in small towns, villages and farmhouses in the countryside. Lancashire, Sussex and Yorkshire took the most. In some cases children were sent to Canada! Although 8,862 children were sent to North America on a ship which the Germans sank.
The first evacuation was very efficient and although 1.5million were evacuated not one was lost or hurt. However from September 1939– April 1940 little progress was made in the war and no air raids were carried out as expected. This period of time was known as the “Phoney War”. Mothers of their children were convinced that nothing was going to happen and they brought their children back home again. A big campaign run by the government tried to prevent this with posters and propaganda. It wasn’t very successful. Around 900,000 children were brought back towards the end of 1939 only to face the start of a Blitz on Britain’s cities in 1940. Many were killed.
This lead to a second evacuation in June 1940 but not on the scale of the huge 1st evacuation. It was still voluntarily and consent was still needed. However flow back continued to March 1940. Those who returned found their schools to be closed and just wandered the bombed streets running risk of being killed. Air raids and blitzes continued throughout until June 1944. In 1943 the evacuees were extremely homesick and despite the advice by the government they kept drifting back. In June 1944 a V1 missile hit London killing many people. This lead to a 3rd and final evacuation. Although a census was carried out in September 1944, it showed that there was 1,012,700 evacuees including 250,000 from earlier schemes. This aided to the successful image of the evacuation after repeated mistakes and losses. It was thought that after 2 years of the evacuation that lice and dirty habits from slum areas would sabotage the whole evacuation process. Then in May 1945 victory for the allies was declared and the war in Europe ended. The evacuees came flooding home and the re settling back into normal life began.
The main thing I have to consider for my answer is who the evacuation was a success for and who wasn’t it a success for. There are sides of the evacuation that suggest it may have been unsuccessful. We must consider that:
- Between September 1939 and March 1940 evacuation cost about 9 million. The money could have been better spent on the production of warships, fighter planes, ammunition etc.
- Evacuation might not have been necessary as bomb damage wasn’t as bad as expected. Instead of the predicted 10,000 deaths a day, air raids killed 60,595 during the whole war.
- The children could have been safer if they had stayed at home in their bomb shelters instead of drifting back during the “Phoney War”.
- Evacuation caused a great deal of unhappiness for not only the children but for families.
- The children’s education was severely disrupted.
- The merging of class and the problems it brought showed that in some parts of Britain children were living in terrible poverty.
However there are reasons that suggest evacuation was successful:
- Evacuation did save lives. If the millions of children had remained they would almost have been certainly killed.
- Evacuation showed that the Government cared. It gave poor parents a chance to send their children to safety. This raised moral and helped keep up people’s spirits.
- Many children enjoyed evacuation. Some of the older children thought it was an exciting adventure full of different experiences.
- Evacuation brought the nation together. It gave children from the cities a chance of a better life. At the same time, it taught wealthier families just how tough life was for poor people of Britain’s slums.
- After the war, the government made a real effort to get rid of bad housing and see that everyone got a decent wage. The evacuation exposed the true life of many of Britain’s citizens and brought on a Social Reform under the control of Churchill.
In conclusion It is my opinion that the evacuation was a success. Although, as shown above, there are two sides to every argument. There were some aspects of the evacuation that show that it was a waste of time, effort and money but there are just as many argument for the evacuation that say otherwise. In my opinion the advantages of the evacuation far exceed that of the short term effects. In the long run the evacuation uncovered many social problems in Britain’s society which in turn the government picked up on and strove to correct them.
The Social Reform that followed the evacuation was a great turning point in Britain’s modern history. Not only did it give better wages and better housing, but a better quality of life for many of Britain’s citizens. It improved our schooling and provided a new generation of better fed, better clothed children. If it wasn’t for the efficiency and well organized effort of the evacuation there wouldn’t have been a Social Reform. The evacuation saved lives for the people of that time but also secured the lives of the people many years after the war as well. That is why I agree with the statement: “Evacuation was a great success”
