Evacuation

Evacuation

The evacuation has got to do with the movement of vulnerable people

and children out of the city and into the country sides in case if the

country starts getting bombed. The evacuation plan began in the 1930s.

In August 1938 Adolf Hilter began making speeches that suggested he

was going to send the German Army into Czechoslovakia. The British

government now began to fear a war with Nazi Germany and Neville

chamberlain ordered that Air Raid Precautions (ARP) volunteers to be

mobilized. Cellars and basements were requisitions for air raid

shelters, deep trenches were dug in the parks of large towns and the

government also ordered the flying barrage balloons over London.

The government also made plans for the evacuations of all children

from Britain’s large cities. Sir John Anderson, who was placed in

charge of the scheme, decided to divide the country into three areas:

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).

The reason for this was to prevent children from dying in the expected

bombing from the new technology of bomber aircraft.

In September 1939, Germany started the war and the Britain evacuated

about 1.4 million kids, just before the outbreak of the Second World

War, the government decided to begin moving from Britain’s cities to

the designated reception areas. Some people were reluctant to move and

47% of the school children, and about one-third of the pregnant

mothers went to the designated areas. This include 827 thousand school

children under school age, 13 thousand expectants mothers, 103

thousand teachers and 7 thousand handicapped people.

When the expected bombing of cities did not take place in 1939,

parents began to doubt whether they had the right decision in

evacuating their children to safe areas. By January 1940, an estimated

one million evacuees had returned home this shows that parents did not

like evacuation and doubted the danger.

In April 1940, another plan was made, this was due to France been