Why did the British Government decide to evacuate children from Britain(TM)s major cities at the start of the Second World War?

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Why did the British Government decide to evacuate children from Britain’s major cities at the start of the Second World War?

Evacuation began before war was declared in 1939 and over 1.5 million children were evacuated out of major cities and towns to the countryside where it was thought to be safer. There were many reasons for the Government’s decisions on evacuations but not all of them were rational, as much of the government’s information about the upcoming war was incorrect. The government knew how the aftermath of the First World War had affected the British and how they had suffered, they didn’t want a repeat to such an awful extent. The number of deaths in the First World War was a huge number in both the military and amongst civilians but it was predicted that more were to be killed and injured during the Second World War due to the improvement of technology. However, as these predictions were based on incorrect data, the predictions were hugely exaggerated and the number of civilian deaths was just a minority compared to the numbers of those killed out in battle. During the First World War in the battle of the Somme, the British suffered over 60,000 casualties on the first day of the attack alone. The thought of so many deaths amongst the British was believed to lower morale in the public and it would have been even worse if a large percentage had been children.

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The British still remembered the bombing of Guenica where the Germans had attacked on a busy market day killing many civilians.  Footage of this was shown in cinemas and shocked many people. Although people were killed, it was not a reliable source to base statistics on as it just happened that everyone was out on this busy day.  There was also the case of German ships shelling Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby in 1914 causing over 500 casualties. Another method that the Germans had developed was Zeppelin airships. The first attack on Britain was in January 1915 when two Zeppelins ...

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