Evacuation in the Second World War

Evacuation in the Second World War

Evacuation is defined in Collins dictionary as being 'a movement from

a dangerous area, especially in time of war'. Surely this is a good

solution to the enemies' bombing.

It was a fast and effective process, 1st September 1939 saw 1.5million

people moving to safer areas. As successful as this sounds many began

to filter home within weeks. Homesickness drove some, hard labour

enforced by the foster parents drove others, but mothers fetched the

majority home by Christmas as no bombing had occurred.

In my coursework I will combine sources and my background information

and research to write an essay on the successes and failures of

evacuation.

Source A is a photo of a group of young children heading towards a

station in London, ready to be evacuated to new homes. They have happy

expressions on their faces and some are waving at the camera. This

shows a good point of evacuation. We do not know who took the picture,

but I can predict that it was taken as a part of the government's

propaganda to persuade people into letting go of their children to

others who live in safer areas. The government viewed evacuation as a

saviour for children in dangerous areas, and would do anything to

encourage this movement, such as taking this photo of happy children

to promote the idea of it being a positive experience. This photo only

shows a sample of the population who were to be evacuated, and it is

only these children who are happy, so we can not base our opinions of

the rest of the evacuated children on this photo.

The photo was taken in 1939, at the beginning of the war, when not

many people had...

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...their parents screaming… and Hitler

leaning over saying 'don't do it'.

Despite the fact that foster parents were volunteers, not many did it

for the pure interest of the children. They could use the children as

housekeepers, labourers or cooks and the foster parent was paid around

10/6p for keeping the child. Sometimes the children were the culprits

though, 'if you sat two words to them they turn round and swear at

you' from one foster parent. It was rare that both the children and

the foster parents lived in harmony.

It is hard to deduce whether evacuation as a success or not overall. I

can say that there were some failures like the rude children, rude

foster parents and children being home again before Christmas, and

some successes like the happy foster-households, the efficiency of it,

and the lives saved.