The government evacuated children from Britain’s large cities. Sir John Anderson was placed in charge of the whole operation and he decided to split the country into three different areas of evacuation, people living in urban districts where heavy bombing raids could be expected, neutral – areas that would neither send nor take evacuees and reception – rural areas where evacuees would be sent. Some parents and children were reluctant to move and only 47% of the school children, and about one third of the mothers went to designated areas. This included of 827,000 school children, 524,000 mothers and children under school age, 13,000 expectant mothers, 103,000 teachers and 7,000 handicapped people. Many people regretted evacuating when the expected bombing of cities did not take place until 1939. By January 1940, an estimated one million evacuees had returned home. Which was not a good idea.
World War Two was the first time the home front got a taste of intense bombing. In world war one mainly coastal areas were bombed and the bombs weren’t as effective as new technology in 1940. The affects of bombing during world war one helped the government thinking because they had an idea of what the Germans were planning to do e.g. turning all lights off so the Germans didn’t have any targets. And Britain realised that the shelters weren’t as affective as evacuation. So you could say Britain learnt a lot from the war. But the safety precautions that Britain took were definitely necessary, as they could have been a lot worse off, if it wasn’t for the Air Raid Precautions ordered by Neville Chamberlain.
In the lead up to World War Two, governments throughout Europe had been terrified of bombing. The devastating, destruction that took place in the Spanish civil war at Guernica was the proof that the governments needed that bombing was the new horror of war fare. In 1932 Stanley Baldwin’s famous remark ‘the bomber will always get through’, with this in mind the British government sent children with minders (mothers or teachers) to safe areas. Britain feared ‘bombing costs’ would be too much and cities would be wiped out completely, like Guernica.
The government’s plans to introduce evacuation was very clever. Children had to be saved because the future depends on them and if children were taken to ‘safe areas’ the men on the front line would have a moral boost because they know there children are safe. Women were also being evacuated and they could help in the war effort by growing there own food and rationing essential items. If the children had not been evacuated then thousands of children could have been tormented by psychological damage after seeing family and friends dying from the bombs. Also as the children were not in the cities it left the hospitals for war casualties. Evacuation is a very clever plan and if it meant saving the children by taking them away from there homes then I think it was very necessary. The bombing came later than expected so the children went back home, this was a disaster as many of them lost their lives. I believe the government was right in the decision in evacuating children.
