Was Evacuation Sucessfull
Michael Carney 10 TT History Coursework (2) How Successful was Evacuation?The thought of evacuation for many will result in a divided opinion. Many people agreed with evacuation and its logic behind it; on the other hand many people felt that it was not a good idea and there was no benefit from sending the children away from home. I aim to find out just how successful evacuation was and using sources and my own knowledge, I will do this (I am going to be using sources from books, texts and extracts of people etc.) Evacuation basically was the situation in which younger children from big urban cities were sent to the countryside in order to protect them from the damage expected in the world war. The process of evacuation was more complicated than this; children would gather at local places such as schools and with their mothers would be collected and taken to the nearest train station to move to more rural surroundings. Children would then get off the train at their destination, where people living in this rural area would have to select or even under some circumstances be given children to stay with them during the course of the war. There were no choices for the children, they were just sent with their small suitcases and gas masks to their destination and had to settle with whom they were chosen to stay with. The process of evacuation was intended to make the children safe, and to protect future generations of the British economy. Under these circumstances, many people have their own opinion of evacuation, but it is questionable whether or not these people have the background knowledge to form a decent opinion of evacuation. I can actually say that evacuation was and was not a success after gathering the information of what happened. Here are many of the reasons as to why evacuation was a success but nevertheless here are many reasons as to why evacuation was not a success...Firstly, there are many
reasons as to why evacuation was a success and that it was the correct decision to allow this process to occur. Considering the short notice that evacuation would occur, the planning and organisation was felt by many as a huge success. Many people within the government had to sort out the amount of funding that was required, the training needed for the operation to run smoothly and to arrange for places for the children to stay. Considering the fact that Britain went to war just two days after the evacuation began, and that the government first anticipated that 3.5 million ...
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reasons as to why evacuation was a success and that it was the correct decision to allow this process to occur. Considering the short notice that evacuation would occur, the planning and organisation was felt by many as a huge success. Many people within the government had to sort out the amount of funding that was required, the training needed for the operation to run smoothly and to arrange for places for the children to stay. Considering the fact that Britain went to war just two days after the evacuation began, and that the government first anticipated that 3.5 million children would leave the cities, the whole operation went smoothly, children were out the cities by the time war started, had travelled fine, had new homes and they had no risk of being killed. Therefore, since the inconvenience of time didn’t help, and that there were millions involved in preparation, the planning and organising of the setup was a very successful one. It also showed that the government cared about the future generations and this made people more confident.The next positive thing to be said about evacuation was the amount of lives that were saved. If many of these children had stayed behind in the cities, it was a certainty that many of them would have been killed. There would have been problems with overcrowding in air raid shelters and that could have caused more chaos and hassle for the people working hard to save the current generation and also many children were saved of the scary events which could have stayed with them for life, they were safe in the countryside and saved room for people which was an ideal situation for everyone.Carrying on, another positive aspect of having children evacuated to the countryside was the positive experiences of the evacuees. Many of these children who were too young to understand what was going on thought of it as a trip into the unknown, which really excited them and gave them a chance to see the world more openly. Those who were old enough to understand what was going on had the chance to possibly live in lives of luxury, big houses with gardens, lots of fresh food and servants etc. These kids had the chance to get out of their not so luxurious lives in council houses, flats etc. which were very smelly and compact. To these kids they loved the idea of a new life for some time and it was only beneficial for them. I asked my granddad about his experience and he told me, “Living in the countryside in Lancashire was very enjoyable. Living conditions were much more adequate than my own house and the people there were nice people who treated my very respectfully. It was a brilliant experience. Finally, the last positive point I have to offer about evacuation was the change of attitudes within the communities. Many people were brought together by the idea of war and everyone knew they had to work together in order to win the war, this was also the case in evacuation process, people worked hard for it to occur in the short time they had and evacuees got on with the people that they stayed with. With evacuees out of the way, people could work hard together and get on with the job required to win the war without the hassle of children around to be worried about. With everyone in a positive mind frame, it would only help the future determination of the outcome of the war. The Modern Welfare State happened in 1945 too during the war which helped with the likes of the National Health Service which is still running to this day. Therefore, it helped with things outside of war as well as in war with children evacuated.On the other hand, many people believed that evacuation was not necessary and it would have been much more beneficial to have kept the children in the cities with their parents; there is actually a lot of evidence which backs these peoples claims up too. The first negative point of evacuation was the cost of evacuation. Around 9 million pounds was spent on getting evacuation set up, could this money have been spent on more important things such as equipment for the British Army, to improve air raid shelters or on repairing the damage caused just to name a few ideas? People feel that the war could have been ended much earlier and the lasting damage could have been sorted out much earlier had not children been evacuated to the rural areas. This money could have also been spent on helping the people who were actually hurt during the bombings and attacks.The second negative people have on sending children to be evacuated was that there wasn’t really enough danger for them to even be sent away from their homes. The government initially predicted that there would be around 10,000 deaths from each air raid attack. The actual figure was that only 60,595 people died throughout the whole of the war. Had these children still been at their homes, and then went to an air raid shelter when there was a scare, they would have been very safe. Therefore, the effort put in to save these children was unnecessary as it was pretty convincing evidence that they would have been ok in the cities. During the Phoney War, many of these children came home and it took a lot of convincing for them to be sent back when there were actually bombings happening. So, if they were allowed t come home after no bombings, was there even a point of having evacuation?The next reason as to why evacuation was not successful was because of the great amount of unhappiness it caused for everyone and the physiological damage it had on people over the forthcoming years. Children were only very young and being separated from their parents was a scary thing for the children at the time which would have made them miserable. The same goes for the parents, how could they concentrate on the war effort if they were too worried about how their children were? The trauma this must have caused everyone involved whether you were the one being evacuated or if it was your relative being evacuated is unthinkable. Many children were treated abysmally by the people they stayed with and the thought of that would have stayed with them for life. On many pictures provided in my booklet, children are smiling in pictures, but these are just poses and really deep down it is likely they were feeling sad. This then wouldn’t have helped the future generations after all and everyone will have been made unhappy of the situation of being made to be split up from their other family members.Finally, the last reason given as to why evacuation was not a success is that children’s futures were severely disrupted. In terms of education, children didn’t really have one, and by this happening it would not have helped these children in the future. By having no education, it would have been hard for these children to read and write, quality of life would have slipped down and they would have found it much harder to have got a job. Therefore, taking one of the most vital aspects of their lives out of them to try to save their lives even though it was very likely they would have been ok in the cities was a big risk, and will have affected many people’s quality of life forever.In conclusion, there were many good and bad associations with evacuation. There were many important factors which made it a success such as good planning and organisation in a short space of time, the amount of lives saved, positive experiences of evacuees and the positive change of attitudes within the communities of people. On the other hand, there were many bad things to do with evacuation including the amount of money spent, the amount of trouble people went through to make it happen, the physiological damage and unhappiness it created and also the effect on later life in connection with education. Either way, both sides of the argument have very valid points to what they believe on the decision of evacuation was and how successful it was. The fact that evacuation occurred cannot be changed now and people will have to live with what happened whether it was a positive or negative time for them. People will still argue their case as to whether or not evacuation was a success, but in my opinion neither of these opinions can be fully justified as evacuation definitely had it positives and negatives no matter what the facts and figures say.
