Why the British Government Decided to Evacuate Children from Britain's Major Cities in the Early Years of the Second World War During the Second World War thousands of children were evacuated from all of the major cities on Britain. There were several waves of evacuation including the 1st, occurring at the beginning of the war and the 2nd in 1940. The children were taken from the danger zones, usually large towns and possible invasion sites, and sent to the less popular areas of the countryside. The Government decided upon this action after considering numerous possibilities and the problem they were faced with of saving the future population of Britain. Even before the start of the war the British government had forecast 60,000 lives would be lost within the first six months if no action was taken to safeguard the population. Throughout the Second World War, there was a severe threat of millions of people being killed in Britain. Children were the next generation, and so the British government thought it essential that the future of the country was safeguarded, and the children of Britain kept safe. They were needed to replace the millions of young men lost fighting in the war. Also Britain had to be rebuilt after the war and people were needed to run the economy. Another main reason for evacuating children was that the Government wanted to win the war. Being a total war, to win the government needed the support of the whole of Britain. They would not get this if millions of Britain’s women and children were being killed. The government also wanted to stay in power and therefore needed to make the British population feel that it was doing all it could to help civilians during the war, and prevent the killing of Britain’s children.. The most successful way of ensuring children’s safety was by means of evacuation. The children were therefore evacuated into the countryside, where there was little chance of any bombing or attack. World war one and the events leading up to the outbreak of ww2 and the