The UK Ministry of Health advertised the evacuation programme through posters, among other means. The poster depicted here was used in the London Underground.
The evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to defend individuals, especially children, from the risks associated with aerial bombing of cities by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk.
Under the name "Operation Pied Piper", the effort began on 1 September 1939 and officially relocated 1.5 million people. There were further waves of official evacuation and re-evacuation from the south and east coasts in June 1940, when a seaborne invasion was expected, and from affected cities after the Blitz began in September 1940. Official evacuations also took place from the UK to other parts of the British Empire, and many non-official evacuations within and from the UK. Other mass movements of civilians included British citizens arriving from the Channel Islands, and displaced people arriving from continental Europe.
Background
Poster issued by the Ministry of Health in 1939 showing a carer (left, next to the soldiers) about to receive a child evacuee from its mother during the war
The Government Evacuation Scheme was developed during the summer of 1938 by the Anderson Committee and implemented by the Ministry of Health. The country was divided into zones, classified as either "evacuation", "neutral", or "reception", with priority evacuees being moved from the major urban centres and billeted on the available private housing in more rural areas. Each zone covered roughly a third of the population, although several urban areas later bombed had not been classified for evacuation.[citation needed]
In early 1939, the reception areas compiled lists of available housing. Space was found for about 2,000 people, and the government also constructed camps that provided a few thousand additional spaces.[citation needed]
The government began to publicise its plan through the local authorities in summer 1939. The government had overestimated demand: only half of all school-aged children were moved from the urban areas instead of the expected 80%. There was enormous regional variation: as few as 15% of the children were evacuated from some urban areas, while over 60% of children were evacuated from Manchester, Belfast and Liverpool. The refusal of the central government to spend large sums on preparation also reduced the effectiveness of the plan. Despite that, over 3,000,000 people were evacuated.[citation needed]
Evacuation
Children from London in 1940 about to catch a train in the city to evacuate them to the West Country.Child evacuees from Bristol arriving at Brent in Devon in 1940Evacuees in Montgomeryshire, 1939
Almost 3.75 million people were displaced, with around a third of the entire population experiencing some effects of the evacuation. In the first three days of official evacuation, 1.5 million people were moved: 827,000 children of school age; 524,000 mothers and young children (under 5); 13,000 pregnant women; 7,000 disabled people and over 103,000 teachers and other 'helpers'.[1] Children were parted from their parents.
Some strained areas took the children into local schools by adopting the First World War expedient of "double shift education"—taking twice as long but also doubling the number taught. The movement of teachers also meant that almost a million children staying home had no source of education.[citation needed]
Evacuation centres
Marchant's Hill School was an evacuation camp of wooden buildings built at Hindhead in Surrey. This is the dining hall in use in 1944.
In 1939 the British Government passed the Camps Act 1939[10] which established the National Camps Corporation as a body to design and build residential camps for young people, which could provide opportunities for outdoor learning and also act as evacuation centres in the event of war. The architect T. S. Tait was responsible for the design of the buildings, which included accommodation for over 200 children and staff, recreational halls, wash blocks and a dining hall/kitchen complex. These camps were replicated in over thirty different rural locations around the country.
During the war years, they acted as safe refuges for city children. After the war the ownership of the sites was transferred to the local authorities. Over the years most of these sites have been lost, but the best preserved example today is Sayers Croft at Ewhurst, Surrey. The dining hall and kitchen complex is protected as a Grade II listed building because of the importance of Tait's work, and because of the painted murals depicting the life of the many evacuees. Evacuation Centres were also set up by the Foster Parent Plan (FPP) for Children Affected by War, later renamed Plan International.
One evacuated school was sponsored by the FPP in Knutsford, Cheshire, with each child being financially supported by an American citizen. One female pupil, named Paulette, was sponsored by Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt.[11]
Overseas evacuation
The Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) approved 24,000 children for evacuation overseas. Between March and September 1940, 1,532 children were evacuated to Canada, mainly through the Pier 21 immigration terminal; 577 to Australia; 353 to South Africa and 202 to New Zealand. The scheme was cancelled after the City of Benares was torpedoed on 17 September 1940, killing 77 of the 90 CORB children aboard.about 14,000 children were evacuated privately to overseas relatives or foster families, including 6,000 to Canada and 5,000 to the United States.[12]
The BBC cooperated with radio networks in the host countries, to make Children Calling Home, a programme which enabled the evacuated children and their parents to talk to each other, live on air.[13]
Other evacuations
Some parents who missed their children were tempted to bring them back from evacuation. This Ministry of Health poster was published to discourage them.
A second evacuation effort started during and after the fall of France. From 13 to 18 June 1940, around 100,000 children were evacuated (and in many cases re-evacuated). Efforts were made to remove the vulnerable from coastal towns in southern and eastern England facing German-controlled areas. By July, over 200,000 children had been moved; some towns in Kent and East Anglia evacuated over 40% of the population. Also, some 30,000 people arrived from continental Europe and from 20 to 24 June 25,000 people arrived from the Channel Islands.
As thousands of Guernsey school children arrived in northern England with their teachers, some were allowed to re-establish their schools in empty buildings. Guernsey's Forest School reopened in a church hall in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire where it operated until August 1945. As a result of the evacuation of so many Guernsey people to England, those returning no longer spoke the Guernsey language (Guernsiaise) after the war.[14]
One of the speediest moves was accomplished by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway when it transferred its headquarters out of London. The company took over The Grove, on the estate of the Earl of Clarendon in Hertfordshire. This was made ready as offices and a number of huts built in the surrounding park. On 1 September 1939, it was decided to move in and the transfer was completed before war was declared two days later. Within three days some 3,000 of the staff were based at the new headquarters.[15]
When the Blitz began in September 1940, there were clear grounds for evacuation. Free travel and billeting allowance were offered to those who made private arrangements. They were also given to children, the elderly, the disabled, pregnant women, the ill and those who had lost their homes (some 250,000 in the first six weeks in London). By the combination of all the state and private efforts, London's population was reduced by almost 25%.
As bombing affected more towns, "assisted private evacuation" was extended. However, not all evacuated children, mothers and teachers were safe in the areas to which they had been evacuated. Air raids, unexploded bombs, military vehicles and military minefields posed risks to the evacuees wherever they were posted in the UK.[16]
London proved resilient to bombing despite the heavy bombardment. The destruction in the smaller towns was more likely to provoke panic and spontaneous evacuations. The number of official evacuees rose to a peak of 1.37 million by February 1941. By September, it stood at just over one million. By the end of 1943, there were just 350,000 people officially billeted. Still, the V-1 flying bomb attacks from June 1944 provoked another significant exodus from London. Up to 1.5 million people left by September – only 20% were "official" evacuees.
From September 1944, the evacuation process was officially halted and reversed for most areas except for London and the east coast. Returning to London was not officially approved until June 1945. In March 1946, the billeting scheme was ended, with 38,000 people still without homes.
Traumatic effect on children
Even at the time, there were some that had grave concerns about the psychological effect on especially the younger children, and wondered whether they would be better off taking the risks with their parents.[17][18]
In the early 2000s a number of evacuees came forward to clarify the many "bad sides" of the evacuation.[19][20]
Cultural impact
Evacuee children on a haycart at Chapel Cleeve, Somerset in 1942This stained glass window by Michael Stokes, in All Saints church, Sudbury, Derbyshire, was a gift from former Manchester evacuees to the community where they were looked after during the war
The movement of urban children of all classes to unfamiliar rural locations, without their parents, had a major impact. The Evacuees Reunion Association was formed with the support of the Imperial War Museum. It provides opportunities for former evacuees to contribute and share evacuation experiences and for researchers to request information such as the long-term effects of evacuation upon children.
The evacuation spawned a whole literature of children's and young adult fiction. The convenience of the setting for the writer is clear, allowing the child heroes to have adventures in a strange, new world. Some of the authors, like Nina Bawden, had themselves experienced evacuation.
In Richmal Crompton's William and the Evacuees (1940), William Brown is envious of the special treats the evacuees receive and organizes an 'evacuation' of the village children.
In C. S. Lewis's novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) the Pevensie children are evacuated from London to the stately manor that contains the wardrobe portal to Narnia. It is never stated in which part of England the house was situated.
William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies (1954) is about a planeful of evacuating children who are shot down over a tropical island.
Michael Bond's beloved children's book character Paddington Bear (1958) is an anthropomorphised orphan bear, who – having stowed away from "Darkest Peru" – is found by a family at Paddington railway station in London, sitting on his suitcase with a note attached to his coat that reads, "Please look after this bear. Thank you." Bond has said that his memories of newsreels showing trainloads of child evacuees leaving London during WWII, with labels around their necks and their possessions in small suitcases, prompted him to do the same for Paddington.[21]
Nina Bawden's novel Carrie's War (1973) is about Carrie and Nick, who encounter different religions when they are evacuated to Wales.
Noel Streatfeild's novel When the Sirens Wailed (1974) is about three evacuees and covers issues like rations for evacuees, relationship between evacuees and townspeople, and the problems encountered by those who stayed behind.
Michael Morpurgo's novel Friend or Foe (1977) is about two evacuees who befriend the crew of a crashed German bomber hiding on Dartmoor.
Diana Wynne Jones's novel A Tale of Time City (1987) begins with the main character, Vivian, being evacuated from London. Jones herself was evacuated to Wales in 1939.[22]
Michelle Magorian's novel, Goodnight Mister Tom (1981), tells the story of the evacuee Willie Beech and elderly Thomas Oakley with whom he is billeted. It was made into a TV film starring John Thaw as Mr Tom.
In the Disney sequel to Peter Pan, Return to Neverland, Wendy Darling's children Jane and Daniel are to prepare for evacuation before Jane is kidnapped by Captain Hook. The introduction to the movie details about the evacuation order and how children need Peter Pan now more than ever.
Kit Pearson's Guests of War trilogy, beginning with The Sky Is Falling (1989), chronicles the story of ten-year-old Norah Stoakes and her younger brother Gavin, who are evacuated to Toronto.
In the 2015 videogame We Happy Few, set in an alternate reality where Germany successfully invaded and occupied Britain during the war, the main character Arthur Hastings betrays his autistic brother Percival giving him up to the collaborationist authorities in order to be sent to Germany.
Novels for adults featuring evacuation and evacuees are:
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh, in which Waugh's anti-hero Basil Seal uses his position as Billeting Officer to extort bribes (for moving disruptive children elsewhere) from hapless and reluctant hosts.
Connie Willis's two-volume novel Blackout/All Clear (2010) has extensive chapters about a time travelling character from the future, a historian named Merope (she takes on the persona of Eileen O'Reilly, an Irish maid), who intends to study the impact of evacuation on the children. When she becomes stranded in the past, she eventually adopts two bratty children to raise herself.
Non-fiction:
Out of Harm's Way by Jessica Mann (Headline Publishers 2005) tells the story of the overseas evacuation of children from Britain during the Second World War.
In Pam Hobbs's memoir Don't Forget to Write: the true story of an evacuee and her family (2009), a 10-year-old is evacuated in 1940 from Leigh-on-Sea, Essex to Derbyshire, where she lives with a number of families and encounters a range of receptions from love to outright hostility – and enormous cultural differences.
Alan Derek Clifton published his memories of being evacuated to Northern Rhodesia in 1940 in the book entitled, From Cockney to Colonial (And Back Again) (2010).
Ben Wicks's No Time to Wave Goodbye and The Day They Took the Children.
Britain's Wartime Evacuees by Gillian Mawson (Pen and Sword, 2016) shares the personal testimony of child and adult evacuees in Britain during the Second World War.
Guernsey Evacuees by Gillian Mawson (History Press, 2012) shares the personal testimony of Guernsey evacuees in Britain during the Second World War.
Girls from Notre Dame High School in Battersea, south London bathing in the River Towy at Llandovery, Carmarthenshire in 1940
Stephen Poliakoff's television drama Perfect Strangers (2001) includes a lengthy flashback of two evacuated sisters who leave the family they are sent to and live as wild children in the woods for the remainder of the war.
In the movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), the children are evacuated to Pepperinge Eye near the Dorset coast where they are taken in by a good witch-in-training.
In the movie The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (2014), the major plot of the film involves a headmistress and a teacher evacuating a group of children out of London. One of the children lost his parents in a Blitz.
The history of Guernsey stretches back with evidence of Neolithic occupation, followed by Roman occupation. Christianity was brought to Guernsey by St Sampson.
A billet is a living-quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, a billet was a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier.
This is a Timeline of the United Kingdom home front during World War II covering Britain 1939–45.
The term "home front" covers the activities of the civilians in a nation at war. World War II was a total war; homeland military production became vital to both the Allied and Axis powers. Life on the home front during World War II was a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Governments became involved with new issues such as rationing, manpower allocation, home defense, evacuation in the face of air raids, and response to occupation by an enemy power. The morale and psychology of the people responded to leadership and propaganda. Typically women were mobilized to an unprecedented degree.
The Royal Voluntary Service is a voluntary organisation concerned with helping people in need throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1938 by Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, as a British women's organisation to recruit women into the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) services to help in the event of War.
The military occupation of the Channel Islands by Nazi Germany lasted for most of the Second World War, from 30 June 1940 until liberation on 9 May 1945. The Bailiwick of Jersey and Bailiwick of Guernsey are British Crown dependencies in the English Channel, near the coast of Normandy. The Channel Islands were the only de jure part of the British Empire in Europe to be occupied by Nazi Germany during the war. Germany's allies Italy and Japan also occupied British territories in Africa and Asia, respectively.
Events from the year 1940 in the United Kingdom. The year was dominated by Britain's involvement in the Second World War, which commenced in September the previous year, as well as the numerous enemy air raids on Britain and thousands of subsequent casualties. Although the war continued, Britain did triumph in the Battle of Britain and Nazi Germany's invasion attempt did not take place.
Roderick Hallowell "Sandy" MacPherson was a Canadian-born theatre organist in Britain. As the second official BBC Theatre Organist, in succession to Reginald Foort, he achieved considerable broadcasting time during and after World War II.
Juliet Gardiner is a British historian and a commentator on British social history from Victorian times through to the 1950s. She is a former editor of History Today magazine, a research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research of the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, and an honorary fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and at the University of Edinburgh. She has taught at Middlesex University and Oxford Brookes University. Gardiner has also worked as a publisher for Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Since 2001 she has been a full-time writer.
The military history of Gibraltar during World War II exemplifies Gibraltar's position as a British fortress from the early-18th century onwards and as a vital factor in British military strategy, both as a foothold on the continent of Europe, and as a bastion of British sea power. During World War II, Gibraltar served a vital role in both the Atlantic Theatre and the Mediterranean Theatre, controlling virtually all naval traffic moving between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Hull Blitz was the bombing campaign that targeted the English port city of Kingston upon Hull by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War.
MV Royal Daffodil was built in 1939 and scrapped in 1967. In the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s she was used for "no passport" trips to France, which enabled people to drink outside normal licensing hours as these did not apply at sea.
The United Kingdom took part in World War II from 3 September 1939 until 15 August 1945. At the beginning of the war in 1939, London was the largest city in the world, with 8.2 million inhabitants. It was the capital not just for the United Kingdom, but for the entire British Empire. London was central to the British war effort. It was the favourite target of the Luftwaffe in 1940, and in 1944-45 the target of the V-1 cruise missile, the V-2 rocket, and the unsuccessful V-3 "London gun".
The Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) was a British government sponsored organisation. The CORB evacuated 2,664 British children from England, so that they would escape the imminent threat of German invasion and the risk of enemy bombing in World War II. This was during a critical period in British history, between July and September 1940, when the Battle of Britain was raging, and German invasion forces were being amassed across the English Channel.
Visitors from London is a children's novel written by Kitty Barne, illustrated with 40 drawings by Ruth Gervis, published by Dent in 1940. Set in Sussex, it is a story of World War II on the home front; it features preparing for and hosting children evacuated from London. Barne and Visitors won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books.
The Brighton Blitz was the bombing of Brighton by the Nazi German Luftwaffe during the Second World War. Brighton was attacked from the air on 56 recorded occasions between July 1940 and February 1944. Casualties in the area were 198 killed and 357 seriously injured, with 433 receiving minor injures.
During World War II, the British government evacuated the majority of the civilian population of Gibraltar in 1940 in order to reinforce the territory with more military personnel, though civilians with essential jobs were permitted to stay. The civilian evacuees were sent to numerous locations, including London, Madeira and Jamaica; some spent up to a decade away from Gibraltar, but the majority returned in 1943 after the Allied invasion of Sicily. The evacuation reinforced the British national identity of the Gibraltarians via their participation in the Allied war effort.
The evacuation of civilians from the Channel Islands in 1940 was an organised, partial, nautical evacuation of Crown dependencies in the Channel Islands, primarily from Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney to Great Britain during World War II. The evacuation occurred in phases, starting with school aged children, their teachers, and mother volunteers. The islands and the British military began the evacuation following the Allies' loss in the Battle of France, after which the British Army withdrew from the islands.
The United Kingdom home front during World War II covers the political, social and economic history during 1939–1945.
During the five-year German occupation of the Channel Islands civilian life became much more difficult. During that time, the Channel Islanders had to live under and obey the laws of Nazi Germany and work with their occupiers in order to survive and reduce the impact of occupation. Given no guidance on how to behave by the British government, there were individuals who got close to the enemy and others who undertook resistance activities.
References
↑ "Evacuation". Spartacus Educational. Archived from the original on 17 April 2010. Retrieved 30 April 2010.
Baumel, Judith Tydor. "Twice a Refugee: The Jewish Refugee Children in Great Britain during Evacuation, 1939--1943" Jewish Social Studies (1983) 45#2 pp175–184.
Crosby, Travis L. Impact of Civilian Evacuation in the Second World War (1986) 176p.
Jackson, Carlton. Who Will Take Our Children? (1985), 217p.
Johnson, Derek E (1985). Exodus of Children: Story of the Evacuation, 1939–45. Clacton-on-Sea: Pennyfarthing Publications. ISBN0-9500031-1-5.
Gartner, Niko. "Administering'Operation Pied Piper'-how the London County Council prepared for the evacuation of its schoolchildren 1938-1939." Journal of Educational Administration & History 42#1 (2010): 17–32.
Kushner, Tony."Horns and Dilemmas: Jewish Evacuees in Britain during the Second World War." Immigrants & Minorities (1988) 7#3 pp 273–291.
Macnicol, John. "The effect of the evacuation of schoolchildren on official attitudes to state intervention." in Harold L. Smith, ed., War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World War (1986): 3-31.
Mawson, Gillian. Britain's Wartime Evacuees: The People, Places and Stories of the Evacuation Told Through the Accounts of Those Who Were There.: 117–130. Pen and Sword. December 2016 ISBN1-84832-441-3
Parsons Martin (ed) Children. The Invisible Victims of War. DSM Oct 2008 ISBN0-9547229-4-9
Parsons Martin War Child. Children Caught in Conflict. (History Press, 2008) ISBN978-0-7524-4293-8
Parsons Martin Manchester Evacuation. The Exception to the Rule. DSM publishing. April 2004 ISBN0-9547229-0-6
Parsons Martin 'I’ll take that one!’ Dispelling the Myths of Civilian Evacuation in the UK during World War Two. 290pp (Beckett Karlson, 1998). ISBN1-901292-03-7.
Parsons Martin Waiting to go home! (Beckett Karlson, 1999). ISBN0-9536516-0-6
Parsons M & Starns P. The Evacuation. The true Story (1999, DSM & BBC). ISBN0-9536516-1-4
Preston, A. M. '"The Evacuation of Schoolchildren from Newcastle Upon Tyne, 1939-1942: An Assessment of the Factors which Influenced the Nature of Educational Provision in Newcastle and its Reception Areas," History of Education (1989) 18#3 pp 231–241. 11p.
Titmuss, Richard. Problems of Social Policy (1950) famous social science study of the evacuation. online free
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